Harry Potter Agent of MI6
by Greame
Summary: Universes hang like beads on a string. Some are almost-mirrors of their neighbours, while others couldn't be more dissimilar. In one, a young wizard fights a hidden war against a powerful Dark Wizard. In another, superhumans walk the streets. Sometimes things can pass between. Sometimes people are stolen. Harry Potter is one such person. Rewritten.
1. Chapter 1

_"They have given me the right, Magus, now stand aside. A boon must be honoured, and its cost must be paid."_

Pain, as they say, is painful. It's why they call it pain. I groaned, a deep bass rumble which started in my chest and forced its way free. Unfortunately, that meant opening my mouth. Ugg. I started spitting, trying to rid myself of the horrible, gritty flavour. That only made things worse.

My body ached, the kind of bone deep, muscle filling pain which only came from a full body beating or the tender mercies of the Cruciatus Curse. I'd experienced both at the hands of Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and this was as bad as any of those times. It was a heavy pain which ran in pulses from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. Even my hair hurt.

I forced my eyes open and tried to rollover. It wasn't to be. I stayed face down in the dirt. Quite how I came to be there, I couldn't recall. My brain seemed to be made of milk. It sloshed against the inside of my skull and was too opaque to let any but the simplest thoughts propagate.

As I moved further from the almost motherly embrace of unconsciousness, smaller pains became apparent. No little number of rocks dug into me. They were small and sharp, particularly the sadistic little example located under my left thigh. It seemed tailor placed to spear the fleshy part of my leg. If this was some Death Eater game, they deserved points for originality.

After a few seconds, I tried to move again. This time I managed to twitch my fingers. Dirt shifted between them. The small victory kindled a spark of happiness within my chest; that said a lot about my life. While I had many goals, being Mad-Eye Moody version two was not one of them.

Over the next few minutes I managed to move the rest of my limbs. Miracle of Merlin wrought miracles, they moved mostly as they should and appeared intact. Maybe I was becoming cynical at the ripe old age of eighteen?

After achieving that momentous, neigh titanic, victory, I took a moment to centre myself, 'then rolled over. My arms gave out mid-way and I collapsed onto my back. Ouch, but I could at least see. That had to be a plus, right? Old thigh-knifer decided to use this as an opportunity to bore into my spine, which wasn't.

Above was the night's sky, a black cloak swept with a wash of stars. Ripped apart earth, upturned mud, dirt covered rocks and uprooted grass lay to the sides. No tropical beach then? Just once I would like to wake up on a sunlit beach surrounded by beautiful women, but that was impossible, not with my luck. Well maybe if the beautiful women were cannibalistic amazons but that's about the only situation I could think of.

I groaned again, spat and managed to force myself into a sitting position. My initial assessment seemed to be right. One hole, large. One wizard, Harry Potter. And one large scaly green thing, green and scaly. Okay, that last was new and unexpected.

Once more into the breach.

Legs shaking, I staggered to my feet, managed the few tottering steps needed to reach the creature's side and collapsed down. It was roughly human in shape but more closely resembled an oversized house elf than any wizard or muggle I'd ever met. Come to that, if Dobby took up bodybuilding, grew to around seven feet tall and painted himself a lizardy green, I might mistake the two. Other than that rough, fanciful and slightly worrying comparison, it was unlike anything I'd ever met. I'd known goblins, mermen, centaurs, veela, hags, trolls, giants and Merlin only knew what else, not to mention unique specimens like my Uncle Vernon and cousin Dudley. This thing didn't look to share a species with any of them. The only things I could think of? A potions accident or self-transfiguration gone very, very wrong.

His clothes — 'he' only because the green thing didn't look at all female — looked to be made from an artificial material, like a muggle wetsuit, but with no pockets, zips or similar. It was one whole. I moved forward and touched the creature's neck, looking for a pulse. Its flesh was cold and felt like snake scales but that was all. There was no sign of life. No answers there.

Steeling myself, I rose to my feet, thigh muscles quivering, and this time managed to stay erect; great, I was now matching the achievements of my one and a half million year gone ancestors. My clothes were a mess, black trousers mud trodden and tattered jumper almost as bad. Despite that, the important fleshy bits underneath seemed mostly okay, only a few minor scrapes and a handful of bruises. Given how I felt, that was remarkably few physical injuries. That wasn't necessarily a blessing. Pain without damage meant the Cruciatus Curse, which in turn meant Death Eaters. I repressed a shudder at the memory of that foul creation and its equally foul masters.

My hand automatically went for my wand, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt its comforting form. I pulled it out and looked it over. It was eleven inches of holly with a phoenix feather core and thankfully very intact. I held it close to my eyes and turned it gently. Time had not been especially kind to it and there were a number of long scratches along its surface, including a recent addition, a long thin wound which ran the length of the wand. Thankfully it was shallow, meaning it would not affect the wand much. Ollivander might not agree but he wasn't here.

Now that I was standing, the hole looked more like a crater, the kind a thing a muggle bomb might make or some of the more impressive forms of wizard blasting magic. The walls were made from loose stones and freshly broken apart earth. I didn't relish climbing it but there wasn't much choice. I needed out of the hole.

My first attempt left me sprawled on my rear end; even the larger stones couldn't take my weight. Grumbling, I pushed myself back to my feet and this time climbed with more care. After a bit of effort I reached the top of the slope, grabbed a handful of proper grass and hauled myself up. The last few feet were a mite undignified but no one was around to see.

Now that I had a much better field of vision, I turned a slow circle, taking in my situation. There was the large pit behind me, an electricity pylon about half a mile away and a group of black dots, rapidly growing bigger.

That gave me pause. Black dots did not make a habit of growing bigger in my experience. When they did, it meant trouble. I tapped my glasses and cast a Magnifying Charm, a simple variant of the spell I used to adjust my glasses. During war, a trip to the muggle or even magical opticians really wasn't an option.

Space warped and the black dots resolved. They were not birds or men on broomsticks but a trio of helicopters. I had never seen one up close but they were on television often enough. These were sleek and dark with spinning rotors. Something told me their current heading wasn't a coincidence. Between my presence, the hole and the whatever-the-green-thing-was, that would be one hell of a chance. Since I had no intention of staying around to deal with irate muggles, especially the muggle military, it was time to take my leave.

I cancelled the spell on my glasses with the appropriate counter-charm and prepared myself to apparate. Destination, Determination and Deliberation, those were the key. I might not have the snap apparition skills of some who fought the good fight but I got by. I pictured the gates of Hogwarts, span on my heel and—

Have I mentioned pain is painful? Well, it is. Something exploded in my mind, and I went over backwards like a bludger had hit my head. I don't know if it was that or the ground but the world became black and fuzzy for quite some time.

* * *

Fire blazed in my skull. I moaned, tried to right myself and—

An immense hammer of pain and force slammed into my back and I went down, wind blown from me. I had no idea what was happening. Someone was shouting something right behind me but it was muffled, as if heard through water. I was far too gone to understand.

I took a deep breath, trying to draw some life back in to my frazzled brain, and remarkably it worked. The world grew clearer, the full sensory spectrum equivalent of putting on my glasses. This was however not entirely a good thing; I could now hear what the voices were saying.

"Stay on the ground!" screamed one.

"Hands on your head!" said another, only a hair less shrill.

Carefully I tensed my fingers around my wand and began to lift my hands towards my head, complying with their commands. If the men came with the helicopters, that made them military. I would need to be smart, quick and lucky. Unfortunately, I had a track record of only managing two out of three on a good day.

Protego! I shouted the incantation in my mind. There was no time to try anything fancy so I didn't even attempt it. A blue barrier ripped into view, blocking the guards from me.

"Drop the stick!" shouted a voice.

"He's armed!" screamed another. "Open fire."

Guns roared and what felt like cannon balls exploded against my shield, but I kept it raised and threw myself to the left. Without me to support it, the shield was ripped apart but that didn't matter. I rose like a phoenix from the ashes, wand extended.

Three soldiers were in my direct field of view. "Stupefy!" I screamed and sent a blazing red bolt into the nearest. He collapsed, scarlet lightning cascading over his armour.

The remaining two swung their guns towards me, big things with barrels fit to shoot grenades and ammunition clips that surely must run afoul of the Obscene Publication Act. They fired at the same moment as I recalled my shield. Blue energy arced into place and two large black projectiles thundered against it. The impact shook my arm and rattled my bones, but I held on.

That's when something slammed into the space between my shoulder blades. Pain exploded, my whole back aflame, and I smashed forward. I lost my wand along the way, 'then there was a whole new set of pains. Something crushed me into the mud and something else screamed in my ear. To say I was a little shell shocked would be an understatement.

After a few seconds, the voices resolved enough for me to hear.

"What did you do to the Lt!" shouted the man on my back.

I mumbled something. The dirt tasted no better than before.

"He's still breathing!" shouted another.

I tried again. "Stunner. Be okay."

"We have no time for this," said a new voice. "Pentland, Powley, take the Lt to Chopper A and get him back to base. Arfman, Dimond, Vickers, perimeter-guard with me. Griffiths, Johnson, Davies, prepare the prisoner for transport. Smith, Sorin, Williams, check the crater. Remember people, we have ten minutes before Thirteen shows up and need to be gone by then. Move it!"

Before I could even begin to process what was going on, someone ripped my hands off the ground and pulled them together behind my back. A boot pushed down on my spine and a soldier snapped something into place around my wrists. A half second later that something was ratcheted tight, a band of hard material which bit into my flesh.

The process made my bones move in ways they really weren't meant to, and I let out a guttural cry. The soldier responded by wrenching my arms higher and pushing down harder on my spine. I bit back any further utterances, but a whole host of things were brewing inside.

Black panic flittered around the edges of my awareness. Wandless, captured, battered and alone. I'd been in worse situation but it was a close run thing. The only bright spark was the lack of skull masks.

"Skrull!" said a distorted voice. "We have a dead Skrull at the bottom of the pit!"

My heart jumped but he'd said 'skrull' not 'skull', whatever that was.

"Pentland," said the voice of the leader over the radio, "take the body and get back to Copter B. We are getting out of here. Griffiths, Johnson, Davies, get the prisoner to Copter C now, unless you want Thirteen to have him. No accidents. If there is even a slim chance that he's another Skrull infiltrator the big men will want to know."

Two strong sets of hands yanked me off the ground and manhandled me forwards, towards a mottled green helicopter. Up close, it clearly wasn't black but from the distance and in the dark, there was very little difference. The same set of hands half carried, half shoved me up a small set of steps and then down into a seat. It was hard plastic and they were none too gentle.

For the first time I got a look at my abductors; there were three opposite me, dressed in green and brown mottled camouflage with balaclavas pulled over their heads. All three held impressive looking guns, barrels pointed right at me. The enchantments woven into my clothes had saved me once but I was in no hurry to test my spellwork a second time. More importantly, my wand was still in their hands, stuck in the shoulder webbing of the leftmost soldier. It might as well be in another universe for all the good it did me.

"Everyone aboard," said a voice from the cockpit. "Take off in three."

With a thump of G-force, the helicopter took off. Waves of vibration passed from the blades, into the passenger compartment, up my chair and into me. My teeth vibrated in my skull. If I'd had fillings, they would surely have been shaken loose. Even the soldiers, who were presumably used to such things, took a few moments to steady themselves. Their attention returned to me before I had a chance to do anything however.

As the helicopter continued to climb into the sky, I found my wand and stared at it with hungry eyes. If I lunged forward, maybe I could get my teeth around it... And then what? I wasn't even sure it was possible to cast spells using just your mouth.

The middle soldier focused on me. "You're lucky you're not having an accident. If the Lt doesn't..." He let the sentence trail off but the look on his face left me in no doubt: any 'accident' I had would be a) very violent and b) not very accidental at all.

"He'll be fine in a few hours," I said and shifted in my seat. My hands were still bound behind my back and were rather uncomfortable. It also occurred to me that I'd just done some rather bad things to the Statute of Secrecy. "I could undo it if you gave me my wand— I mean stick back." I nodded to where it hung in the webbing.

From the looks they gave me, that wasn't happening.

"Enough of this," said the one on the left. He reached up and grabbed a black hood from the helicopter's equipment rack. He moved towards me, opening it as he did.

Not good. Not good at all.

"Look," I said. "There's no need for that."

He kept coming.

I threw my head back but he moved forward just as quick. The silky black hood ripped down over my face and a drawstring narrowed around my throat. Inside the hood, I couldn't see, sound was muffled and my breath was hot and humid.

It wasn't a pleasant journey.

* * *

The helicopter touched down with a thud and the rotors slowed to a whining stop. Once they had stopped entirely, I was once more manhandled to my feet. The soldiers' fingers were like iron bars biting into my arms, and they dragged me towards the door. The floor disappeared from under me but then I found my feet and half walked, half fell down the stairs.

Outside the passenger compartment the air was cold. A frosty wind hit my hands and chilled my flesh through the rips in my clothes. It made my teeth chatter and pushed the black hood flush against my face.

"This way," said the soldier to my left, the hood giving his voice a deadened quality.

"Watch your head," said the one to my right, and the final member of their number pushed me down and forwards from behind.

I ducked and shuffled forward. Crack. A long hard something smashed into my forehead. I saw stars and my brain rattled against the inside of my skull.

"I said watch your head," said one of the soldiers but I was too rattled to tell who. Whoever it was, I could hear the smirk.

Moving only half under my own power, I stumbled forward again, felt something against my knees and clambered up and in. From the gentle vibrations running through the floor, my money was on a car or van. The car/van/whatever dipped slightly as my bookends got in behind me, did so again as the rear guard entered and shook as the doors were slammed shut, a rubbery thud. Once everyone was secure, the vehicle jumped into motion.

"Take off the hood," said a voice, and I thought I recognised it as the one who'd been giving orders back at the crater.

Hands grasped around my neck, the hood lifted and blinding white light assaulted my eyes. I hissed and drew back but it was only temporary. After a few seconds of pain, the light dimmed and I could see again, first blurs, then shapes and finally people.

I looked to be in the back of a van, if one a bit longer than the classic muggle dodge sprinter, beloved of film criminals everywhere. There were no windows but padded benches lined both walls. Most of the space was filled with armed and armoured soldiers, the men from the helicopters. Dobby Max Plus — now available in a range of greens — lay on the floor. I counted the soldiers and there were ten of them. Not good odds at all.

"What's your name?" said the man opposite me. He was tall and muscular, wore the bulky armour like it was made for him and had three chevrons, those upside down arrow things, on his shoulder. I couldn't see his face because he still wore the balaclava but if I could, I doubted it would stray from the image overly much. None of that made me eager to answer his questions but it couldn't really hurt. Anyone who meant 'Harry Potter' harm would know me from the black hair, green eyes and lightning bolt scar.

"Harry Potter," I said, and if my voice was a touch petulant, I think I was due.

"You registered?" he asked.

"What?" I said. Registered to what? For what?

"Any aliases, codenames or secret identities?"

That made no more sense than the 'registered' question.

The possibly-some-sort-of-officer touched a radio on his chest. "I want a Reg check on a Harry Potter," he said. "Possibly some sort of energy projector."

"He said he could undo what he did to the Lt with this, Sarge?" said the soldier with my wand. "Using this stick thing."

'Sarge' nodded. "Possible intel," he said into the radio. "Might use a special stick of some kind. Possibly magic, possibly supertech."

'Possibly magic', what else was there? What in Merlin's name was supertech and, come to that, how come these soldiers even knew what magic was? I shifted in my seat. Whatever they'd bound my wrists with was digging in painfully.

Almost as soon as he was done, Sarge's radio buzzed and a voice came out. "Sarge," it said. "This is Pentland. The Lt just woke up. Docs say he's going to be fine. The red thing just knocked him out. Bit of pressure on the heart but nothing major."

A wave of almost tangible relief spread through the soldiers, muscles sagging and breaths let loose.

"Right, Potter," said Sarge. "You've got some explaining to do. What in fucking hell are you doing near the Skrull?"

"The green thing?" I said and looked down at it. It was no less ugly.

"You don't know what a Skrull is?" said Sarge. He clearly didn't believe me.

It was my turn to be confused. "Why should I? Listen, I don't know how, but you clearly know about magic but that thing is like nothing I've ever seen."

"Listen, you little punk," said one of the soldiers with menace in his voice. He raised his gun so it was pointing almost but not quite in my direction. "My sister died in the Skrull attack, and I'm not going to let you sit there and pretend the Earth wasn't invaded by aliens."

I shied back but inside was reeling. Alien invasion? Could the muggle military have mistaken Voldemort's second rise as an attack by extra-terrestrials? Muggles had been known to mistake wizards for little green men — as the international wizarding gardening contest come crop circles attested — but this stretched belief.

Sarge nodded. "Cut the silly buggers," he said, and if his voice was less overtly hostile it didn't endear him to me. "I don't think you realise just how much trouble you're in. This is the twenty first century. The Earth has been invaded multiple times. There were Skrull ships over London and fighting in the streets. And here you are, found with a Skrull."

The man was insane. There was no two ways about it. Alien invasions? The very idea was stupid, and not even the Wizarding World could miss that kind of thing, as insular as it could be. Then I noticed the second thing. Sarge had said twenty first century. That was still years off.

"It's nineteen ninety eight," I said.

Everyone in the cab looked at me like I was an idiot.

"Try two thousand and eight," said Sarge.

I stopped talking after that and so did they; it was clear we were at an impasse.

* * *

Near the end of the journey, they put my hood back on. I didn't even bother to fight this time; it wouldn't do any good.

Once the engine was switched off, I was bundled out of the van by two strong sets of hands, possibly the same as before, and shoved through a confusing maze of passages. Or possibly one large open room with an especially sadistic set of guards.

Finally we came to a stop and my hood was yanked off. The material clawed at my face and knocked my glasses squint but it was worth it for my first gasp of un-muggy air in what felt like hours. The burning white light which blasted my abused retina was less welcome but it was probably for the best too.

"Hands," said someone. I squinted and the blur in front of me resolved somewhat. It was a man, wearing military dress but not the flack-jacket armour of the soldiers. The room was also small, little more than walls, bed, toilet and sink.

"What?" I said.

"Show me your hands," he clarified, now annoyed. The shadows of his face deepened.

I shuffled around until my back was to him, and lifted my hands as best I was able. They were really sore now, the dull ache of trapped blood. There was a moment of pressure then I was free, and pain. Couldn't forget the pain. I hissed as blood rushed back into my abused extremities.

"Take off your clothes and put these on." I turned around; he was motioning to a pile of clothes laid out on a chair beside me. The two soldiers who dragged me here stood outside the door. The looks on their faces said only one thing: Just you try something.

With no other choice, I did as bid. Off went my jumper, shirt, trousers, shoes, socks and underwear and on went the new clothes. I tried to keep a little dignity but that was a mite on the hard side. The collarless shirt and trousers were made from a coarse fabric and were not particularly well fit. Then again, my old clothes had several large rips in them so it wasn't all bad. I'd miss the Counter-Curses woven into them, though. It hadn't been easy to produce a stable weave.

The guard next held up an overly complicated looking device, like a muggle asthma inhaler. "Blood sample," he said. "No trouble." He pressed it to my arm and pushed a button. I hissed as a sharp needle jabbed into my flesh. The back of the not-inhaler turned red and he withdrew it. Blood beaded on my skin.

His job done, the guard backed out the room and slammed the door. It clanged like the gates of hell. He and the two soldiers walked away.

* * *

I sat on the bed. I lay on the bed. I stared at the ceiling. I slept and woke and everything in between. Occasionally food came, slotted under the door on institutional trays. There were no clocks. I lost track of time.

Sometime after the ninth meal, a voice echoed into my cell.

"Anybody there?" It sounded Liverpudlian. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had views on Liverpool.

I sat up, eyes flicking open. It came from under the door.

"Um, yes?"

"Ha! Knew someone was brought in. What's your story?"

"Story?" I said.

"Yes. You're story. Why Six snatch you?"

"Six?"

"MI fucking 6. The f-ing spooks, man!"

MI6, I knew, was the Secret Intelligence Service, Britain's external intelligence agency. Was that who captured me? If so how and why?

"Who are you?" I said.

"Name's Fogg," said the voice. "As in Knight and Fogg. Heard of me?"

"No," I said. "Should I have?"

The voice sighed, a whispering wind. "Nobody's heard of Knight and Fogg. Shit, man. We were this close to making it big. I had the damn wallcrawler's neck in my hands and was moments from snapping it."

"Wallcrawler?"

"Spiderman, man! The damn wallcrawling spider."

"Who?"

There was a pregnant pause. Before that moment I had no idea how a pause could be pregnant but this one was about to give birth. With my luck, the mother would also bring suit against me in the Wizengamot for child support.

"Spider fucking man!" said Fogg and tendrils of greenish gas played under the door. "How can anyone not have heard about the spider?"

"Should I have?" I said. Quite frankly, Spiderman sounded faintly ridiculous. Like Batman, that guy from comics. You'd never catch me dressing up as a giant bat, or, as the case may be, spider.

"Never heard of Spiderman?" said Fogg. "Really? He's major league. Ran with the Avengers even."

"Avengers?" I said. Wasn't that a TV program? I seemed to remember Aunt Petunia watching something by that name. It had spies and stereotypical English accents to the point of self-parody.

There was a second pregnant pause. This one was having triplets. Before it could give birth, I had a sudden horrible idea. "What year is it?" I asked.

"Is it new year yet?"

I shook my head, realised that was stupid and said, "No."

"Two thousand and eight."

Merlin blast everything.

"So," said Fogg, slowly. "You from the past or something?" The casual way he said that did nothing to set my nerves at ease.

"Nineteen ninety eight," I said but mostly to myself. Fogg was mad. The soldiers were mad. Everyone but me was mad. Time travel existed, yes, I'd even done it myself, but Time Turners only went backwards. The only way to reach the future was the long hard trek.

"There were superheroes in the nineties," said Fogg. "Fucking hell, there were superheroes shoving their noses in back World War Two way."

"Superheroes?"

"Costumes," said Fogg. "Do-gooders. Bastards with flashy powers who try to keep a man from an honest day's work."

Given Fogg's earlier comment about breaking necks, I decided to take his explanation with a pinch of salt. Anyway, even I knew what a 'superhero' was, if only through cultural osmosis while growing up. They were people with special powers from comics. Superman, Batman, Magno the Magnetic Man and Captain Courageous. They were, well, the heroes. Of course, they were also just stories. The world had enough magic, wonder and danger without making things up. Fighting Death Eaters was hard enough. They didn't need laser eye beams or whatever. Even so...

"You were a supervillain?" I said, face slightly quizzical. Fogg was mad — that was the only explanation — but he was certainly playing to his delusion.

"So they call me. So they call me. I preferred solutions specialist."

Translation: murdering insane bastard. But there was the fog under the door...

"You have powers?" I said.

Maybe 'powers' were just magic. It was the only thing I could come up with. Fogg was a wizard who used his powers in strange ways. With the right spells, I could probably replicate a fair chunk of what I dimly remembered superheroes doing. A broom to fly, Blasting Curses for heat vision, levitation for strength and Shielding Charms for invulnerability. That was almost Superman right there.

"I can turn into gas," he said, sounding oddly proud.

"Is that how you're talking to me?" My eyes went to the bottom of my door but the green gas stayed out of sight.

"Yep. They've got a restraint collar on me but I can do that much. Send messages about the cell block. Talk to people. I'm the hub around these parts."

That could almost fit self-transfiguration. If he — I wasn't sure — transfigured his body into a living gas or something. It might not work. I wasn't sure if it was even theoretically possible. But maybe.

"And why are you here?" I said. The previous line of questioning was making my head hurt and this one was almost as important. Of course, the question I asked wasn't quite the one I wanted answered. Wrong pronoun.

"Bloody Six," said Fogg. "I told you, man. They snatched me. I wasn't doing nothing. Just a bank job. Stuck me in this hole. Fucker Alistaire Stuart wants me to work for him. Says he'll make my record go away. Give me a fresh identity. Fuck him I say. Fuck the man."

The air stirred and once more green gas played at the bottom of my door. I kept a careful eye on it and lifted my feet off the floor.

The gas retreated and Fogg said, "So what are you, then?"

I sighed. Things were already messed up. Why not make then more so? Some truth might even shake loose in the confusion. "I'm a wizard," I said.

"Wizard are you?" said Fogg. "I've worked with a few in my time. Even ran with Baron Mordo once. Not sure I believe in this magic stuff. Mostly just normal powers with added hocus pocus if you ask me."

That complicated my Fogg-As-A-Wizard theory. It also ratcheted up my confusion a few notches.

"There are wizards, here?" I said. It was best to make sure.

"Hundreds," said Fogg. "Superheroes, supervillains. People just in it for the money."

"And you're not a wizard?"

"Fucking hell no. Won't catch me in a dress."

To summarise. One, there were wizards. Two, Fogg wasn't a wizard. Three, Fogg still had powers. To shorten things even further, Fogg was insane and nothing he, or anyone else said, made any sense.

"We mean the same thing by wizard, right?" I said. "Spells. Magic. Wands".

"Don't know about wands," said Fogg. "But spells and magic, so they say. Big flashy things, the ones I run with. Blasting holes in banks, raising zombies. Freakish shit like that."

"Don't they want to stay secret?" I said. There was meant to be a Statute of Secrecy, banning any wizard from revealing his or her self to the muggle world. Fogg was suggesting the exact opposite of that.

"Some do, I suppose," said Fogg, and I could almost hear him shrug. "Even if the hocus pocus is real, not much different from any other power."

"Other kinds of power?" Fogg was painting a very strange picture.

"You get hit on the head?" said Fogg. "Course there is. Mutants, mutates, you mystic types if you're not all off your rockers, aliens, guys with technology so advanced it might as well be magic. I've run with them all."

That was a lot to take in. Fogg was likely mad — no, definitely was mad — but... But I didn't know what to think. I'd seen the mist under my door. Fogg was doing something, even if I wasn't sure what.

Before I could come up with a response, Fogg broke back in. "Guards coming. Talk later."

Only a few seconds later, I heard them too: the thud thud of feet on concrete and the jingle of keys. Without a single word, the slot at the bottom of my door opened and a tray was pushed through. It was loaded with the kinds of mass-produced food I remembered from muggle school. It didn't look appetising at all. Say what you want about Hogwarts, but the food was good.

* * *

Between the next few meals, Fogg and I talked some more. He painted a very strange picture, a world filled with battling super humans. There was magic, yes, but only as a small part of the larger whole.

"And the Skrull were the ones who invaded?" I said. It was a tangled knot, and I didn't know what to make of it.

"Yep," said Fogg. "Shapeshifting buggers. Snuck in, replaced some people and tried to take over. Then the superheroes did something and every Skrull in Britain dropped dead. Course, the rest of the world was having its own problems with them."

"I still don't get this," I said. "The heroes were on the ship?"

"No, no," said Fogg. "You've got it backwards. Listen—" He stopped and a trace of green flickered under my door. "Guards coming."

No sooner had Fogg stopped talking than the sounds of booted feet echoed down the corridor, which was strange. The last meal couldn't have been more than a few hours gone; the next wasn't due for some time.

The footsteps stopped outside my door and there was a rustle of keys. They were coming for me?

I stood and backed up against the far wall. My hand itched from the lack of my wand. With my wand I could have blasted my way free. With my wand I could have turned invisible, charmed the lock and walked out. With my wand I could've ignored all that and disapparated long ago.

The door swung open and two guards stood there, big men in uniforms.

"Potter," said the left most. "You're wanted."

My eyes flickered over them, sizing them up. They could take me; there was no doubt about that. I wouldn't stand a chance, not without magic and I didn't have that without my wand.

Nodding my head, I walked forward, through the door and into the great grey yonder.

They led me along a long line of cell doors. As I passed one, a green gaseous hand waved from inside and a long angular face appeared at the window. It mouthed something, 'Fuck the man.' Fogg?

Bookended on both sides, I couldn't go back to find out and had no choice but to go where the guards led me. That was a small room, just off the cell corridor. It was bare except for two chairs and a table between then. All were made of metal and were bolted securely to the ground. The guards motioned for me to sit. After I did, they cuffed my hands together with a length of chain and ran it through a ring in the floor. I wasn't going anywhere in a hurry.

Once I was thoroughly secured — and I have to say, I took a perverse pride in the extent of their precautions — the door opened again and a man walked in. He was just exiting middle age, with closed cropped grey hair and a heavily lined face. His clothes looked expensive but also well lived in.

Time for a shot in the dark. "Alistaire Stuart?" I said.

"You'll speak when—" said the guard to my left before being cut off by a wave of the presumed Alistaire's hand.

"I don't have time for games," he said. "Yes, I am Alistaire Stuart and you are Harry Potter, currently held in custody by MI6."

So that part of what Fogg said was right. The knowledge brought me no relief; it just made me worry about the rest.

"Isn't MI6 external security?" I said.

"If I'm right, Potter, you are the very definition of external."

I did not like the sound of that. Not one bit.

Alistaire sat on the chair opposite and folded his hands on the table. His eyes were hard blue, like chips of ice.

"You claim to be a wizard," he said. It wasn't so much a question as a statement of fact. I suppose it was unreasonable to assume MI6 wouldn't monitor their own cells. So much for Fogg's secret. "Am I correct in assuming you possess a superhuman ability of some kind and that you are not referring to a religious belief or set of practices?"

"Yes," I said. There was no point in lying but a touch of petulance entered my voice all the same. "I can cast spells and stuff when I have my wand."

"That match's with the report from our Armed Operations Arm. You'll be glad to know that Lieutenant Tolson has made a full recovery."

"It was a Stunning Spell," I said for what must be the umpteenth time. "It knocks you out, nothing more." Okay, yes, in especially large quantities Stunners could cause damage but there was no point in going into that.

Unaware of my internal pontifications, Alistaire reached into his briefcase and pulled out a newspaper. He placed it open before me. "This is today's issue of the Times. Look at the date."

The first thing I noticed was the large picture on the front page. It showed a man in a red, white and blue spandex uniform, styled to look like a Union Jack. The title dominated the top of the page, written in large black letters. It read, 'Captain Britain defeats Syphon'. With a horrible sense of the inevitable, I looked up, already knowing what I would see.

'19th December 2008'. The day was more or less right, given my imprisonment. The month was also correct. The year, though, was very, very wrong.

The story was strange too and meshed with Fogg's twisted world. 'In a heroic battle,' the first line read, 'Captain Britain defeated Syphon, and stopped Syphon's plan to steal the life force of over one hundreds school aged children.' It then went on to cover other details of the event, and gave a short and somewhat convoluted history of Syphon. Not a word made me feel better.

"That reads like something from a comic book," I said even as I tasted self-deception on my tongue. "Superheroes aren't real."

"Numerous superheroes were active in the early nineties and many more during World War Two," said Alistaire. He looked oddly pleased with himself but his eyes remained cold and focused.

"I would know if that was true," I said.

"And yet you claim to be a wizard."

"Wizards are different. We're just people. We don't go running around wearing spandex and saving people like someone from a comic book."

"So in your _world_," said Alistaire as he steepled his hands, "there are wizards but no superheroes, history itself is different and there is a ten year time gap."

"What do you mean world?" I said. He'd put an odd emphasis on it.

"World, dimension, Earth," said Alistaire. "Call it what you will. There are countless of them, all connected but independent. I think you came from another Earth and travelled here to this planet."

"I did no such thing. I just..." Had a perfectly normal day, went to sleep and woke up at the bottom of a hole. Something tickled at the back of my mind. Boons, maybe? I couldn't grasp it. "I didn't do anything like that."

"Mr Potter," he said. "I work for MI6. That means I work for — and as far as you are concerned, am — external security." His ice-blue eyes flashed above his hands. "If you are not an external visitor, I might have to hand you over to MI-13. The penalties for failing to register a superpower are quite stringent. The penalties open to them under Anti-Skrull legislation are even more severe. Please remember your company when we found you."

My lips pressed themselves together, a white line. "You're threatening me," I said.

Alistaire didn't even blink. "Yes, Mr Potter, I am threatening you. You have something I want and I have something you want."

'Fucker Alistaire Stuart wants me to work for him,' Fogg had said. 'Says he'll make my record go away. Give me a chance at a fresh life. Fuck him I say. Fuck the man.'

"And what's that?"

"A way home," he said.

"A way home?" I said. "I don't even believe—"

Alistaire snapped his fingers and a section of wall burst to life. A second ago it was just another panel. Now it was a TV.

"On with us today," said the Channel Four news anchor, a woman in her mid-thirties, "is world renowned scientist and superhero, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, live from America. It is good to have you here, Doctor Richards. Or should I say, Mister Fantastic."

"It's great to be here Barb," he said, a middle-aged man in tight blue clothes. A stylized number four dominated his chest. "And let me just say—"

Alistaire snapped his fingers again. This time it was the BBC; the presenter was a dignified old gentleman, whose face I dimly remembered from life at Privet Drive though much older. "Today's top story continues to be the rescue of over one hundred school children by Captain Britain. We now go live to our reporter, Fredric Times at the scene.

"Now Fredric—"

The TV shut off and Alistaire just looked at me, daring me to object.

And it _was_ an impressive display. I couldn't deny that. Not unquestionable proof but it did knock me back a few mental steps. Instead of questioning it further, I asked a different question.

"And what," I said, "do you want from me." I already had a good idea what the answer would be.

Alistaire smiled, but again it failed to reach his eyes.

"I want you to work for me, Mr Potter."

"Why?" I said. "You have a world full of superheroes."

"Because you don't exist," said Alistaire. "I know you've discussed some of my world's history with Mr Fogg but it wasn't overly in-depth and the devil, as they say, is in the details."

He took a breath.

"I need you because dedicated weird happenings organisations don't work. It didn't work for STRIKE, for RCX or for Black Air and it won't work for MI-13. Even WHO was corrupted and supplanted in the end. Each of those was a dedicated weird happenings organisation, each existed outside the conventional intelligence and security services, and each became the very things they fought against. All three were corrupted and turned against this country, and all three cost us to put down. Only supported by the conventional services can a weird happenings organisation succeed. That's why I built Mordred and that's why Pete Wisdom tore it down."

For the first time there was fire in his eyes, and it was a fire I recognised. It was the mark of the true fanatic, that infinitely bright spark of obsession which burnt at the heart of some souls. It was Voldemort when he spoke of muggleborns. It was Hermione when she spoke of House-elves. It was the mark of madmen and visionaries, and I just wish I knew which.

"As you might have gathered," continued Alistaire, the fire dying back, "all mutants, mutates, magicians and other odd balls who call our country home, are required to register their names, powers and abilities with the government. These laws were passed a little over two years ago in what the media dubbed 'The Civil War'. This was not a problem for me; in fact, it made my task easier. I cultivated a group of super powered operatives, supporting and working alongside more mundane assets. We called it Mordred, to contrast with Wisdom's and Braddock's Excalibur.

"Then, only a few months past, the Skrull invaded. It was chaos. Senior members of the government, people I thought my colleagues, were revealed to be infiltrators. Wisdom used the opportunity to activate reserve powers in the Registration Act. He seized control over every mutant, mutate, alien, psychic and magician in Britain and conscripted them into his MI-13. Most he lets do what they want but some, my operatives and any I try to cultivate, he keeps close. He tried to close me down. Wisdom hates the darker side of intelligence work. He's an ideologist who will destroy this country."

"And you want me?" I said. It had been quite a speech.

"Yes, I want you and others like you. People who don't exist. People who are dead. People who Wisdom doesn't know I have.

"And in exchange you'll send me home?"

"In exchange you'll have the full might of British Intelligence trying to get you home. Until then, you work for me."

What could I possibly say to that?

* * *

It felt good to be out of the cuffs and felt even better to walk on my own.

"I'll need my wand back," I said as I trailed after Alistaire Stuart.

"You shall have it," he said.

We reached an intersection and Alistaire turned left, away from the cell block.

"What's to stop me just leaving once you give me my wand?"

"Not a thing," said Alistaire. He stopped and turned. "I could have you implanted with an explosive chip. I could have you bound by a powerful geas. I could do many things. But I won't. People work best when motivated by rewards. Threat of punishment breeds only rebellion. You could walk out the door as soon as you are outside these cells. You will have the opportunity. But to do so would be a mistake. You are alone here, Mr Potter. You are without money, friends, contacts, identification or information. You're best chance to go home lies with us. I have travelled to multiple alternate Earths and returned. Trust me when I say it's possible to travel between them and we're your best hope."

His piece said, he turned and continued walking. I followed in his wake.

We reached a set of closed doors and Alistaire swiped a key card through a reader. The doors clicked and he pushed them open. Beyond was a small sitting room, lined with soft furnishings, mostly low backed plush chairs covered in a coarse purple fabric. Alistaire motioned to a chair and said, "I'll be turning you over to Doctor Lorance Hartwell for the mystical portion of your evaluation."

"Evaluation?" I said, nasty images of my OWLs flashing before my eyes.

"Yes. I'm sure I can find a use for you, whatever the results, but for field operative status, I need a full workup of your powers, abilities, physical fitness and psychological condition."

I gulped slightly but nodded.

"Good. I'll send for you once I've examined the results."

The doors swung open and a man stepped in.

Alistaire gave a half-sardonic smile. "Mr Potter, this is Doctor Lorance Hartwell, Mordred's head mystic. Hartwell, this is Mr Potter."

Lorance was a smiling man in his early forties, around my height, which was to say the bottom end of normal. He had mouse brown hair, which lay limp on his head, and a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. Hanging from his somewhat gangly frame was a bottle-green suit, and he clutched a leather-bound tome under one arm. The title seemed to be in Latin, which was Greek to me.

"Ah, yes, um," said Lorance. "A moment, please." Said moment was spent juggling his book and, once settled, he held out his hand. "A pleasure," he said.

I took it and shook.

"Very well, Mr Potter," said Alistaire. "I will leave you in Doctor Hartwell's capable hands." He nodded to us both and left.

"I'm Harry Potter," I said and smiled.

Lorance returned the expression, a look of faint relief covering the rest of his face. He looked like a kicked puppy. "Lorance Hartwell, Doctor Lorance Hartwell in fact, though not for much longer I fear. The University Council has been trying to strip me of it for years."

What could you possibly say to that? "Stuart said you were the top mystic here?"

"Oh, ah, yes. I suppose I am. I wrote my doctoral thesis on 'Demonology and the Occult' at Trinity College. There are some quite fascinating books in the college libraries. I remember one particular volume 'Philosophi Lapis et Camera Secretorum'... It was a raining that day, you see, and I was exploring the book crypts..."

He trailed off.

"You were to oversee the mystical part of my evaluation?" I said.

"That was right, yes. Now, Alistaire said you were from another dimension?"

"He seems to think so, yes."

"Splendid," he said. "Since I'm sure he has his reasons, we'll start there."

"Start there?"

"Yes. There are a number of spells I could try. They won't send you home but we might be able to find out where your home is. I would like to begin with a Ritual to confirm you are truly from another Earth."

My heart beat faster at the news. "Let's go."

* * *

Lorance led me to a small, quiet area, just off the plush sitting room. We both stepped inside and I looked around.

Dribbling candles illuminated the room. They danced in the wind from the door and cast moving shadows and false light across the bare stone walls. The floor was likewise stone but perfectly smooth. At the centre was a complex collection of circles, runic engravings, mystical writings and occult fetishes. In short, it was all the things a proper Hogwarts educated boy like me knew didn't matter. The circles, maybe, since a physical guide had its uses in enchanting, but not the rest. If this was what passed for a 'head mystic' in this world, they needed me a lot more than they thought.

"This is the ritual?" I said and raised an eyebrow.

"Ah yes," said Lorance. "The Ritual. It's really quite interesting, a combination of summoning minor spirits and the invocation of an overarching being's intelligence. If you would please stand in the circle, we can begin."

In perfect honesty, I was more than a little dubious at the prospect but if they planned to hurt me, they'd had ample and better opportunities. That didn't rule out damage from incompetence, of course, but I walked forward all the same.

"Please be careful not to smudge the chalk as you enter," said Lorance, and I was as careful as a lamb.

"Now what?" I asked.

"If you could just stay there and not move too much," said Lorance, his face obscured by the book he was reading.

After a few seconds, he set it down, loosened his cuffs and threw out his chest. Then, like every cliché magic pose from the muggle world ever, he raised his arms and intoned, yes intoned, "Fire lights of Avalon, I call thee. Guides of the astral plane come to me."

There was power in his voice. I couldn't express it better than that. It was like being near Dumbledore or Voldemort when they truly cut loose, a deep base resonance which entered via the bones and spoke to the soul. You couldn't feel magic, of course. That was silly. But there was something there. Lorance's hair waved as if in some astral wind and a symbol glowed upon his forehead, a multi pointed shape surrounding a grasping maw.

From the ground came bursts of light, like reverse raindrops. They fell upwards into the air, then hung steady, like enchanted beads caught in a Levitation Charm. There were hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, and they swarmed in a never ending dance.

"Saturnyne," continued Lorance, "guide these lights. Show the truth of our visitor, as is my right!" His voice peaked at the last and crashed in from all directions. Blue light boiled up out of his eyes and I almost took a step back.

Around the room, the lights began to circle and change. Their chaotic dance grew orderly, a cosmic pattern, and some shifted colour, most to red but a fair fraction to blue. After a few seconds, the dancing stopped entirely and the remaining white lights froze where they were.

I was afraid to move or speak lest I upset something but Lorance let out a deep sigh. The magic flowed from him. The glow left his eyes, the wind stilled and the mark on his forehead vanished. With the reverence of the moment broken, I felt free to ask my question. "What now?"

"Now, Mr Potter, we count the white lights. Ignore blue and red. If there are six hundred and sixteen, you are from this world. Any other number and you're not."

We set to work and it was a surprisingly hard task. Counting free floating lights in three dimensions... Let's just say 'have I counted that one already' was asked a lot. In the end, I came to four hundred and sixteen while Lorance got four hundred and twenty two. We split the difference and called it four hundred and nineteen. As Lorance explained, the exact number didn't matter, as long as it wasn't six-one-six. The spell was only calibrated on one point whatever that meant.

"So this is not my world?" I said.

Lorance shook his head. "To the best of my ability to determine, no."

Even with everything I'd been told and shown — from newspapers, to news programs, to men with gas for arms and magic which worked in completely alien ways — I still had a hard time accepting that. Even if things had changed, why did dimensional travel make more sense than, say, Voldemort changing history, me being trapped in an illusionary fantasy or any number of other things?

"And Alternate Worlds are real?" I said.

"Oh yes," said Lorance. "Quite real. Demons, for instance, exist in sub universes attached to our own; full alternate Earths exist a bit further afield, metaphorically speaking; and there are any number of specialised energy planes, like the Darkforce Dimension which this facility was built to study."

"Darkforce?" I said. It was becoming something of a pattern. When Lorance started talking, I got lost.

"A negative energy and darkness realm. Many superheroes and supervillains draw power from it."

As if that made much more sense.

We spent the next few hours running through a half-dozen others spells, apparently designed to test for specific worlds. None of them turned up positive.

Finally Lorance had to admit defeat. "I do apologise that I could not be more help, Mr Potter," he said and ran a hand up through his hair. "I will of course research the matter further. In the meantime, if you are ready to move on with the others parts of your testing?"

I nodded. "I'll need my wand."

"Ah, yes. There was something about that... I have it here... Somewhere..." He shuffled around in the pockets of his bottle-green suit and there it was. My wand. My eyes locked to it, like needles to a load stone. It was eleven inches of holly wood with a phoenix feather core, slightly scarred by years of use, but perfect all the same. I wanted it. I needed it. Lorance threw it too me, and I caught it on instinct. Pins and needles shot up and down my arm. It was mine.

"Lorance," I said, my heart beating faster.

"Yes, Mr Potter?"

"I'm sorry about this; I might come back. I just need to know."

"What?" He turned, eyes open in confusion.

I didn't give him a chance to say anything more. I just span on my heel, wand held wide, and apparated away.

* * *

I appeared in a clap of sound Merlin-only-knew how many miles away. The air was cold and a winter sun hung over head. A shiver ran through me; my prison issue clothes weren't thick.

Before when I tried to apparate, I'd aimed for Hogwarts' gates. If this was truly another dimension, it wasn't surprising that had failed. My destination was some place which didn't exist. This time I aimed for a mundane location I knew well. This time I aimed for Number 4 Privet Drive.

The house was just as I remembered: a new build in the suburban style, complete with perfect garden and car in the driveway. Only... It wasn't the right car. I stole forward, towards the front door. There was a nameplate there, just as in the real world, but the name was wrong. Gone was 'Dursley' and in its place 'Wilkerson'.

I tapped the lock and muttered a spell. "Alohomora." The door clicked open and I crept inside.

It was eerie how similar this Number 4 was to mine, same carpet, same wall paper, same style and middle class aspirations. Of course Little Whinging attracted a certain kind of person, the window twitchers and false fronters. Probably also a hot bed of wife swapping but I didn't want to think about that.

On the wall was a set of family pictures, a father, a mother and a son. The father was red faced and overweight. The mother was tall and peroxide blond, what we called a potion blond in the wizarding world. And the son? He was pudgy and smiling. Despite that, they were not the Dursleys.

The potent blood protections might have gone with my majority but Number 4 was still well defended, and my relatives would not have willingly left. They had still lived here when I last checked, a few weeks before.

I shut the front door without leaving, flipped the lock and disapparated.

Apparition was seldom pleasant but I barely noticed this time. I popped back into existence, in a disused London back alley. Discarded newspapers blew passed and I couldn't help but notice some bore the same story Alistaire Stuart had shown me, Captain Britain saves the kiddies. Tits on page three. Grime covered the bricks and the place smelt terrible. Just as with apparition, those things happened to a different Harry Potter.

Ahead, the alley opened up into a slightly wider street but it was still minor. A payphone sat there, alone and deserted. I stepped inside. The speaker was broken but that shouldn't matter.

With a shaking finger, I typed a sequence of numbers. 6-2-4-4-2, MAGIC. Nothing happened. The floor did not open up. I was not swept away to the Ministry of Magic. Something twisted inside me. The phone booth shook as I apparated away.

In quick succession, I went to all the places I knew. First to 12 Grimmauld Place. It was occupied by a strange family. Next to Ottery St. Catchpole; the Burrow didn't exist. Finally I went to Shell Cottage. I'd saved it for last. Shell Cottage was where I lived, with Ron, Hermione, and the rest of my faction in the Order of the Phoenix. It was an abandoned ruin, walls crumbled, stones weather beaten and overgrown with weeds.

Falling roofing tiles crunched under my feet as I walked towards it, cold wind freezing my face. It was gone, all gone. My world. My friends. My fight. The stone walls lay heaped in the earth, moss-covered and broken. There was no sign of battle, no sign of struggle or hurried flight. There was no message left under a stone. This was caused solely by the ravages of time, pure and simple, and the damage was old, almost certainly more than ten years. My world was stolen from me.

I screamed and jabbed my wand forward, twisting my wrist. "Expulso!" Fiery force erupted from my wand and tore down a wall. It wasn't enough. "Deprimo!" I shouted and slashed my wand in a flicking cross. A stone detonated, sending red hot fragments in all directions. Not nearly enough. "Confringo!" I cried with all my heart and soul. I made a circle with my wand tip and stabbed right through the centre, sending the Blasting Curse bursting towards where the hearth had once stood. The remains of the chimney stack exploded into countless pieces.

Thud. I collapsed to my knees, breathing deeply, emotions raw. It was gone. All gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Someone had stolen my world. I didn't know who, I didn't know why, but I would find out.

With a crack I apparated again, this time to where Hogsmeade should have stood. I was very careful to aim for the land and not any of the buildings. That was good because there were no buildings in sight, just fields, open, earthy and waiting for spring. That didn't matter. I started across the fields, towards where Hogwarts should — would — stand.

It was hard going. The field was furrowed, full of fouls and foot traps. Halfway there, I fell and landed in the mud. Frozen earth bit into my arms and knees but I ignored it and pushed myself right back up. Hogwarts' lake came into view, a silver crescent, cold in the Scottish winter. I could almost taste it. The rest of the lake came into view and then I reached the shore. There was no Hogwarts. There was no castle. There was no Wizarding World.

There was no anger this time, just hollowness. It started in my throat but spread, taking in my chest, then torso, then everything I had. I was hollow. The hollowness was me. There was no Wizarding World here. Alistaire and Lorance were right. This wasn't my world. With one final crack, I returned to my once and future prison.


	2. Chapter 2

My return was anti-climactic. Maybe Lorance, or more likely Alistaire, had expected me to run, or perhaps they just decided it was in everyone's best interest to pretend it never happened. Whatever the reason, it was decided the hour was too late to continue that evening and I was led back to my cell for a night's sleep. Come the morning, the testing continued as if had never stopped.

"Next we will continue with your mystical testing," said Lorance as he led me through the prison level once more.

I yawned; it was early, probably too early.

We reached the lifts, and Lorance swiped a key card and gave a thumbprint. After a few minutes, the doors pinged open and we stepped inside.

The lift panel had seven buttons, from 'G' at the top to '6' at the bottom. Was the entire base underground? I hadn't seen any windows.

Lorance pressed '3' and we smoothly accelerated.

According to the sign when we stepped out, level 3 was for 'Research and Development'.

A reception area guarded the entrance and behind that was a bustling flow of people: white lab-coated science types, mixing with business suited office workers and even a handful of robed people who wouldn't have looked out-of-place in the Wizarding World. Letting loose a constant stream of cut off apologies, Lorance dived into the stream and I followed in his wake, dodging people with every second step.

He led me to a large room set well off the main thoroughfares. It was long and rectangular, the walls painted a stark white and the floor covered in vinyl squares. A firing range took up half the space, similar to the sort of thing I'd seen on TV, and an oddball collection of machines, occult objects and strange combinations of the two filled the rest.

"This is one of our testing rooms," said Lorance. "We're just waiting for one of my colleagues."

We weren't waiting long.

A man walked in. He had messy brown hair, similar in style to mine, wore a white lab coat and had just a hint of stubble around his chin.

"Mr Potter," said Lorance, proffering with his hand. "This is John Taylor. He's in charge of Resource Management here at Mordred. Mr Taylor, this is Mr Potter, our new recruit."

We said our hellos.

"Mr Taylor does a marvellous job of storing and examining all the exotic artefacts Five and Six collect," said Lorance. "There are some quite fascinating antiquities in his vaults, I can assure you. In fact, I think we just received a package all the way from America just last week. A hard drive was it not? There might be some very interesting information given the reputed source."

"Yes there very well might," said John and smiled ruefully, "but I can't get into that. You know the rules. My team and Archives are working around the clock to break its encryption but still no luck. I'm beginning to think we may need to use one of the supercomputers, AEON probably. That or see if Cunnings will lend us Faye, though she's seldom very good at this kind of thing."

"What's this test going to involve?" I asked. As interesting as the shop talk might be, there were other things we should be doing.

John clapped his hands together and said, "Right, Lorance, where do you think we should begin?"

"Demonstration first?" said Lorance and turned to me. "Mr Potter, if you'd like to show us what you can do. After that we can move onto analysing those abilities and attempt to derive the theoretical underpinnings."

That sounded okay to me. Blowing something up might even make me feel better.

John agreed too and pointed to the firing range. "Please direct any destructive abilities towards the targets on the far wall."

A yellow line was painted on the floor, just in front of a set of blast shields. I walked up to it and looked about. A little over two dozen feet away stood a range of target dummies, store mannequins made from black plastic and dressed in oddly coloured skin-tight clothes.

"Ready when you are," said John. Both he and Lorance had retreated behind an additional set of plastic blast shields, off to one side. That was probably only sensible.

I loosened my wrist and let my wand dance between my fingers. Time to put on a show.

"Confringo!" I said. Circle. Stab. The Blasting Curse streaked loose, passed through a gap in the blast shields, and slammed into the foremost dummy. It exploded, shards of plastic and foul black smoke pouring in all directions.

"Well that was fairly impressive," said John, but I wasn't done yet.

"Accio Pieces," I said and flicked my wand. The massed array of blasted apart plastic flew towards me. Just before it would hit, I ended my spell and cast a Banishing Charm. "Depulso!" The collected pieces hung still for an instant before speeding back the way they'd come, towards the target dummies, and there I halted them again. With a flick of my wand, I cast a non-verbal Levitation Charm and locked them in place, a frozen rain storm.

Only one thing left. "Reparo," I said and slashed my wand from left to right. The dummy was born anew. It didn't matter whether the pieces were broken, blasted, vaporised or melted. It didn't matter that some were probably missing. It didn't matter that I knew next to nothing about how the dummy was made. The pieces flowed back together and melded, the action oddly organic. Within seconds, the dummy was unharmed and whole. It stood among its fellows like it had never been broken.

"Fascinating," said Lorance when I was done. "Can you repair anything or only things you break?"

"Most things," I said and shrugged my shoulders. "As long as they are simple. It doesn't work on fancy magic stuff. I doubt it would work on anything electronic either and probably not anything with too much mechanical complexity. It's mostly a household charm."

"So how many spells are there, Mr Potter?" asked Lorance.

That was a good question; I'd never really thought about the number before. Magical civilisation was thousands of years old so there must be a lot. All I could really do was take a guess.

"I'm not really sure," I said, "tens of thousands, probably more."

"Really?" said Lorance enthusiastically, causing his glasses to fall down his nose. "And how many do you know?"

Um, that was another good question. Over my career at Hogwarts, I must have been tested on hundreds of spells, been taught ten times that number and learnt even more due to my somewhat colourful extracurricular activities. Despite that, how many did I actually remember? There were maybe fifty spells I used on a regular basis, household charms and combat magic. Add to that what still remained in my memory from school or picked up elsewhere... And I had no idea.

I said as much.

"You don't know?" said Lorance.

"School was a long time ago," I said, somewhat defensively. One and a half years was a long time right? It certainly seemed so if you were fighting a war. "And there was always a lot going on." A little voice, which sounded far too much like Hermione, pointed out that I'd never been the best student even when my life was relatively quiet. I told it to shut up and let me have my delusions.

"School?" said John, and so I explained a little about Hogwarts. Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts. Teach us something please. Or not as the case may be.

When I was done, the two men understood a little better.

"I can't say how much I remember from my days at school," said Lorance. "We had this Geography Master. Stridesworth. Something like that. And I used to love his classes. Couldn't tell you what the capital of Paraguay is now days, though."

"Asunción," said John before turning his attention back to me. "Where did you get spells from?"

"From teachers and books mostly," I said. "Or Hermione. She's a friend of mine. To cast a spell you just need the incantation, the wand movements and practice, so it's not hard to pick up new ones. Some have extra bits and a few can be really tricky, but most are simple enough once you've got the hang of casting magic." Then it occurred to me what I had just said. "That's going to be a problem isn't it?"

"How often do you have to look up spells?" said Lorance. He was writing something down. That couldn't be good.

"Not often," I said, and felt a bit better when he wrote that down too. "I'm more the kind of person that gets really good at a few spells and uses them a lot. It got to the point where the Death Eaters would attack anyone using a Disarming Charm, assuming it was me in disguise."

"Death Eaters?" said John.

Ah... I'd really hoped to avoid mentioning things like that. "Terrorists," I said. "I'm part of a group which fights them." There, mostly true, even if it did leave my somewhat pivotal role out of things. They didn't need to know about the split in the Order of the Phoenix following Dumbledore's death, or how I'd ended up the leader of the younger, more proactive faction. They definitely didn't need to know about horcruxes, prophecies or the human costs of the war, even if Voldemort had been keeping his head down the last few months.

"I think we're getting off topic," said John.

"Yes," said Lorance. "Back to the matter of spells."

"What else can you do?" said John. He had his pen and paper out now, ready to take notes.

"Um," I said. Good start Potter. "I can stun people. That is, knock them unconscious. I can disarm people, which, well, disarms them. The spell knocks wands and weapons out people's hands. I can vanish things, making them disappear. I can turn invisible. Make stuff levitate and cast a shield which blocks spells and objects. Apparate; that's teleporting. Lots of things." A lesson from years ago at Hogwarts chose that moment to resurface. "Oh and I can make teacups dance." I smiled at the last but it was only half a joke. I really could make a teacup dance, though I wasn't terribly good. Mine mostly just shuffled about. Ron could make a ten piece tea set do some really quite complicated waltzes. Not bad for a guy who still stubbornly refused to learn how to dance properly on his own two feet.

"Would you please demonstrate," said Lorance, motioning with his hand at the target dummies.

"And could you repair the dummies after you break them," added John. "It would help with my budget."

Thoughts of Ron and the rest of my friends were not welcome at that moment so I shoved them to one side. If Lorance and John wanted a show, a show they'd have. It was time to shine. I disarmed, stunned, transfigured and charmed. I split a dummy down its centre, turned the halves into a hoard of mice and then made my massed rodent army dance the Cancan. The sight of those twenty-odd mice, dancing in a row, was enough to bring a smile to even a miser's face. I even added some basic conjuring, calling forth a small stool, a red feathered bird and a mass of chains, which I rapped around one of the dummies. Anything more complex and I risked messing up so I kept it simple. Conjuring was never a talent of mine.

In total, I went through a fair chunk of my everyday spell library and anything else which came to mind, though I stayed clear of anything truly dark. It was foul magic to a spell and if things turned sour... It might be useful to have a few aces in the hole.

"Wonderful," said Lorance, almost clapping his hands; I could see Flitwick in him at that moment. "I think that's enough demonstration for now. Let's move onto some of the other things we're meant to be studying. Could you please stand in this circle?" He pointed to a golden circle built into the floor, simpler but more permanent than those used in the last set of rituals. I complied and stepped inside.

"Now," said Lorance. "We're going to raise a sensor shield — don't be alarmed. Mr Taylor, when you are ready?"

John Taylor stood at one of the large, complicated machines and began fiddling with the buttons. Around my feet, the circle began to glow, a soft golden light which cast strange shadows across the floor.

"Ready," said John.

Lorance nodded and closed his eyes. He started mumbling under his breath and raised a hand, fingers spread. Then he spoke.

I couldn't hear the words but I felt their effect. They echoed off my bones and the circle shot to life, a glittering curtain of golden energy that reached from ground to ceiling. It warped the room, giving birth to twisted shapes and too-deep shadows, and made me shiver despite myself.

"Now," said Lorance, once more speaking normally, if a bit breathless, "this will let us examine your magic more closely. If you could just cast a spell at the shield, any spell will do."

The golden curtain worried me, there was no two ways about it, and I was none too confident about what it would do to my spells. Towards that end, I chose something relatively harmless — a Cheering Charm — and lobbed it silently at the shield. It hit and thankfully did not rebound. Instead it spread out, merging and diffusing along the curtain. As it did, the sounds of a thousand chirping crickets filled the room.

"Interesting," said Lorance, probably speaking to himself. He'd turned to gaze at a polished silver mirror, set on the wall.

"I agree," said John from his technological workstation. "Could you cast another spell, Mr Potter, preferably something with a different nature?"

Nothing bad had happened yet so there was no excuse to avoid it, as much as I would like otherwise. The curtain was like fingernails against the blackboard of my mind but trying to explain that would be more trouble than it was worth. Again, I pointed my wand at the circle and cast, this time a simple transfiguration spell to turn wood to metal. The golden curtain undulated wildly, crickets sung their song and gradually my spell dissolved.

"Hum," said Lorance. He was right in front of the mirror now. "And another, please, as different as possible from the first two."

I tried a Body-Bind Curse this time, not something I used every day but not something I was going to mess up either. This time my spell hit the curtain and stuck in place. The crickets sounded especially angry, and it took almost a minute for my spell to disappear entirely, fading from a mass of burning silver, to a glowing cinder, to nothing at all.

"Is that enough?" said John.

Lorance hummed once more, fingers idly toying with a pen. "I think so, yes." He waved his hand and the curtain vanished, draining down into the glowing circle. After a few seconds even that stopped. As soon as it was completely gone, I stepped out, glad to be free. There was something freakish about the magic involved.

"So Doctor," I said and shivered slightly, "what was that all about?" It was colder outside the circle and the damn crickets continued to chatter in my ears.

"We were trying to find out how your magic works," said John from in front of the work station.

"And did you work it out?" I asked. I could have given them a brief overview of magical theory but it was unlikely to be very in-depth. Mine was a practical knowledge. For everything else there was Hermione.

"First let me explain how magic works in this world, Mr Potter," said Lorance. "Here everyone has the potential to use magic, at least to some degree. You said that was different in your world?"

"Yes," I said; I'd mentioned it the day before while we were searching for my home. "Only some can learn. It mostly runs in families but it turns up in the muggle — um, non-magical — population every so often. We call them muggleborns."

"How intriguing," said Lorance. "I've read reports of worlds where similar things happen but it's still quite alien. On this Earth, anyone can learn magic, but most don't really believe it exists, I'm afraid, and some need more help than others. There are several notable examples of..."

John coughed into his hand and Lorance had the good grace to look sheepish.

"As I was saying," he continued. "Magical power comes from three sources in this world."

"Four if you include Artefacts," said John. His position vis-a-vis the inclusion of artefacts was clear.

Lorance sniffed. "Very well, four, but I still say artefacts should come under the heading of... Oh, it doesn't matter. Four sources. That naturally inside us, which can be cultivated by study and spiritual growth. That naturally present in the universe, which can be manipulated by spell and ritual. That tapped from far off dimensions, the Darkforce I mentioned, various gods and demons, things of that nature. And, yes, artefacts, sources of magical power in their own right which can be invoked and used."

He let out a sigh.

"Of course, in real life magic rarely falls into nice categories and most practitioners will fall simultaneously into two or even three classifications. The likes of Doctor Strange probably tap all four on a daily basis."

"And where does my magic fall?" I said quickly, before Lorance could start elaborating again.

"You're not from our world so your magic is even harder to classify," said John, "but if I had to speculate, I would say it is most like our extra-dimensional model. The power is not coming from inside of you; it's not coming from this universe, the circle would have detected that; and that just leaves something extra-dimensional." He frowned. "Unless, maybe, it's the artefact model, with your wand as the source? Are they common where you come from?"

"Everyone has a wand," I said. "It's just about impossible to do controlled magic without one, unless you have a rare gift. Even then, it's normally one very focused ability." Metamorphmagi, Parselmouths, Animagi and the like could wait for another day. "Wizards generally have, um, accidental magic when we're younger. That's when we get upset or frightened and make stuff happen, but that stops as we learn to cast magic properly."

"Interesting," said John. "So the magic is definitely tied to the individual. What purpose do wands serve?"

"They let us control our magic," I said and demonstrated by waving my wand, trailing a line of red sparks. "They focus, channel and guide. A wizard's wand... It's not just a stick. It's, well, alive. The wand chooses the wizard, not the other way around. Treat it with respect and it will grow with you. Treat it ill and your connection will dwindle." That was simple enough. No need to go into the effect wand woods and cores could have on a wand's nature, let alone the innumerable other factors which affected wand loyalty. "I've had mine since I was eleven years old. Holly wood and phoenix tail feather." My wand seemed to hum in my hand, like a purring cat. Probably just my imagination.

Both men looked at me, slightly worried.

"Phoenix as in a bird or phoenix as in The Phoenix?" said Lorance.

"What's 'The Phoenix'?" I said. I didn't like the way he'd said that at all. "The tail feather is from a bird called Fawkes. He's, I don't know, about three feet long, has flame red feathers and is just about completely immortal. Every so often he goes through a burning day. That's when he's reduced to ash and returns as a small chick. Is that a phoenix or The Phoenix to you?"

Both looked a little relieved at that, if not completely so. "It doesn't matter," said Lorance.

"Would it help if I explained some magical theory?" I said.

Lorance nodded.

"That would be helpful," said John.

And so I explained what I knew of how magic worked, starting with Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling, a book I'd not read in years.

* * *

"Explain the charm thing again," said John and rubbed his forehead.

"A charm is a spell which adds a magical property to something," I said, "the magical equivalent of a coat of paint. It doesn't alter an object's fundamental nature."

"And how do socks fit into this?"

It was my turn to be exasperated. "I think you're getting a little hung up on the socks," I said. "They're just a metaphor."

"I have to say," said Lorance, "the socks confuse me too."

Damn Dumbledore and his metaphors.

"Look," I said. "When you bewitch an item, that is, add a charm which will stay around, it's like a pair of socks. Once it's there, it's there. It does its job with no more work from you, just like a good pair of socks will keep your feet warm without any further work from the seamstress. However, as you use the charmed item—" Lorance looked ready to butt in and I moved to pre-empt him. "Or wear the socks. The charm — or socks — become worn down. It gets less and less good at its job, just like a sock with holes will get less and less good at keeping your feet warm."

"That's a very strange metaphor," said Lorance.

Well, it made sense to me. Maybe I should be worried about that?

"Just listen," I said. "It's simple. Say you've got a broom. That broom has a Breaking Charm on it, to let you slow down and stop. Each time you use the charm, it gets a little more worn out, less if you use it gently, more if you abuse it. Depending on how good the spellwork is, it could last for years or just hours. Eventually, the charm won't work at all." Best not to go into the weird tics and habits near exhausted charms could develop.

Both John and Lorance completely failed to be overcome by a wave of sudden clarity.

"Another thing I'm not clear on," said John. "How do you decide if a charm stays on an item or leaves when you stop the spell? Bewitching it you said."

"It's to do with how you cast it," I said. "And the spell." Some spells were better at staying around than others, just as some were easier to perform non-verbally or with loose wand movements.

"But how do you choose?" said John. He was really getting hung up on this point.

"You just do," I said.

"Is this to do with using intent to change a spell?" said Lorance.

"No," I said. "Changing spells with intent is something else entirely." Anyone trying to use intent warped spells in enchanting was just asking for trouble. When you warped a spell, you changed it from its base line and could no longer predict its interactions with other magic. If you were unlucky, things just didn't work. Very unlucky and it exploded in your face. I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to go into subordinate incantations, with their focused and standardised spell warped effects. If in six months they wanted to know the difference between 'Protego' and 'Protego Totalum' I would tell them. Now it would just confuse things. That was becoming something of a pattern.

"About spell creation," said Lorance, and I repressed an internal groan. I'd thought we were done with that. "I still don't understand..."

* * *

After much arguing and some more of my admittedly weak attempts to explain things, we called a halt to my magical evaluation. Of course, Mordred wasn't done making my brain hurt for the day. Not by a long shot. First there was a gruelling physical exam and then it was time for my psychological evaluation, which seemed to involve asking every possible question about my life. I mean, how could I possibly have been a member of the Nazi party? I was born in nineteen eighty!

"Mr Potter," said Doctor Patterson from his seat. "Could you please pay attention?"

I sighed and looked up; he took that as a yes.

"Now," he said, "you've told me some of your life at... What was it? Ah, yes, Hogwarts. And of this Voldemort person. And of joining the 'Order of the Phoenix'." He, I noticed, didn't seem overly worried by the word 'phoenix'. "Now, according to my timeline, you left school at the end of your sixth year but 'Hogwarts' has a seven year curriculum. Why did you feel fighting 'Voldemort' was more important than your education?"

Because of prophecies, destiny and horcrux-scars but Patterson didn't need to know about any of that. He already knew far more than I'd like, but I'd already let the Death Eater out the bag as it were. "Because someone had to," I said.

"But why you?"

"Because someone had to," I said again. My knuckles were white under the table. "He was killing people. People I knew, my friends. He was a threat to everything and everyone."

"And so you packed up, took your friends and set off to fight a war?"

"Yes," I said and sat up straighter.

"You're not telling me something," said Doctor Patterson. It wasn't a question.

"I'm telling you everything you need to know," I said. It probably wasn't the best statement but Doctor Patterson seemed to know when I told an out-and-out lie. My few aborted attempts at doing so had proved half-truths and misdirection the far better course. Even my answer about why I had to fight Voldemort was true in a sense. Dumbledore would likely consider it even more important than the 'real' reason.

"Do you like playing the hero, Mr Potter?" said Doctor Patterson, gazing out over his fingers. "What do you want? Fame? Power? Recognition?"

"No!" That was just about the opposite of reality; I had more fame than I ever wanted, which was none. "I just like helping people, okay?"

"Very well," he said and shuffled his sheaf of notes. "That will do for today, but I will be recommending regular counselling sessions in the coming months."

"Counselling?" I said. Did Patterson think I was crazy?

"Yes, Mr Potter, counselling. You are far from home and under a lot of stress. Regular counselling can help you deal with that."

And pull more background from me no doubt.

"Fine," I said, slightly sullen. Agreement seemed to be the only option right then, but I would try my hardest to get out of it later.

"Very well, Mr Potter. You may go. Someone will call for you shortly. In the meantime I would advise you to relax. It's nearing dinner; I will have something sent to your room."

I sighed for what must have been the thousandth time and shook my head. The battle was over for now. "Thank you, Doctor Patterson."

"You're most welcome."

With that, I turned and left. Doctor Patterson's office was on level 1 — 'Planning and Operations' from the sign. That meant the ground was only a little way above my head. I turned and looked up. The roof looked the same as all the others, a smooth mass of white plaster.

There was a polite cough from one side, and I moved to face it.

"Mr Potter," said an eager looking twenty something, bobbing his head. "I've been asked to escort you back to your room." Said 'room' had formerly been my cell but I wasn't going to complain. They'd let me keep my wand, so there was nothing keeping me here other than my own willingness to stay, not walls, locks or armed guards.

"Lead on," I said.

* * *

Dinner was better than before, the meat cooked rather than merely institutionalised and the vegetables were more than boiled lumps of organic matter. The carrots even came with a glaze! Talk about the lap of luxury.

"So you sold out," said a voice. Fogg.

I didn't look up from my food. "Not a psychopath like you, Fogg. They can get me home."

"That what Stuart promised you?" said Fogg. "Be his dog and he'll send you home."

"He promised to help me find a way."

Fogg laughed, a too high chuckle that set my teeth on edge. "And why would he do that? He's a fucking spook, man. He'd kill his own mother if some fucker told him to. He's got you where he wants you and he'll never let go."

"I think you're wrong," I said and plopped another carrot in my mouth. "He's driven, yes, but thinks he's doing the right thing."

"And why does that matter?" said Fogg. "The superheroes are the worst. They'll tell you it's necessary as they put the gun to your head. Hypocrites all of them. They say they're fighting for truth and justice and all that crap but I've seen who they really are. Good men, don't make me laugh. Everyone's in it for themselves."

"Altruism exists," I said and closed my eyes. All the people who'd died to protect me danced behind my eyelids. My mother, to fuel ancient sacrifice magic; my godfather, Sirius, through the Veil; Dumbledore, so I might live and for his unwavering belief in the inherent goodness of man. Even Snape, defying Voldemort to the end. I ate another carrot.

Fogg retreated to a sullen silence.

Just as I was finishing up, there was a knock on my door. Since said door didn't open from the inside, it was mostly a symbolic gesture.

"Come in," I said.

It was the eager looking twenty something again, still in his business suit, still with the wet-behind-the-ears just scrubbed look of the newly employed.

"Mr Stuart will see you now," he said and proffered towards the corridor.

I stood and stretched. "Lead on."

As we left, two armed guards fell into place around us. They stayed until we were out of the prison level.

* * *

As it turned out, Alistaire Stuart's office was on the first floor, Planning and Operations, not far from Doctor Patterson's. We walked along brimming corridors, ducking and weaving through the constant stream of smartly dressed men and women. If the eager looking twenty something didn't apologise quite as much as Lorance, he tried. It was probably for the best. It gave the hulking men carrying bright red boxes covered in warning signs, time to get out our way.

Before long, we reached a set of double doors, labelled 'Alistaire Stuart – Special Advisor', and went inside.

The outer office was a reception area. There were a number of low seats, a few tables and a secretary. She sat behind a desk packed with stacked paper and worked industriously on a modern looking computer. 'Modern' wasn't saying much from my point of view. The last computers I'd spent any time with were my primary school's old BBCs.

"Mr Potter to see Mr Stuart," said the eager looking twenty something, voice squeaking. I could hardly blame him. The secretary's nameplate said Alice Blackmore. She had blond hair, blue eyes, clear skin, and a perfect build. If I'd not known better, I'd have said she had veela blood too.

"He's expecting you, Mr Potter," said Alice, without looking up from her computer. "Knock, wait for a response and enter."

"Thank you," I said and sent her a smile, which of course she didn't see.

A large oak door stood slightly recessed to the left of her desk and it repeated the sign from outside, 'Alistaire Stuart – Special Advisor'. I did as instructed and knocked.

"Enter," said a voice only a few seconds later. I did that too. The eager looking twenty something stayed outside.

Alistaire's office was, well, exactly what the office of a spy should be, the gentleman intellectual adventurer. Tall bookshelves lined the walls, filled with smartly bound tomes, oil colours hung in the free spaces and a green leather desk stood at the far end. Behind the desk was a large window, showing the view over London. No, wait. I looked again. Not a window, some kind of giant TV. The picture moved all the same. Between the desk and the TV-window sat Alistaire Stuart, on a high-backed swivel chair. His eyes were chips of ice and he was as intimidating as I'd ever seen him.

"Mr Potter," said Alistaire and nodded his head. His face gave nothing away.

"Err," I said before kicking my brain into gear. "Good afternoon, Mr Stuart." Even with my brain working it still took an effort not to fidget. Instead I stood rock still, a little in front of his desk.

"I have the results of your tests here," he said and held up a loosely bound pile of papers. "And have examined them."

Silence hung for a moment and I tried my best not to break it.

"I have to say I'm impressed," continued Alistaire. "You did well in the physical, not spectacular, but nothing a few months of regular exercise won't sort out. Doctor Patterson seems to think you're surprisingly well-adjusted considering recent events, though he adds that you could do with regular counselling sessions. But he thinks that of just about everybody. Lastly I have Doctor Hartwell's and Mr Taylor's report on your superhuman abilities."

That last comment won a wince. 'Superhuman'? That just didn't sound right. Wizard, yes, maybe some local twist on that, but superhuman? That was only one step away from superhero. Alistaire continued and cut off any further thoughts on my part.

"According to this report," he said, "you have a wide and varied range of abilities, seldom seen outside of high-end reality warpers or powerful magic users. However it also notes that, while varied, your abilities are less potent than we'd expect from someone of that level. Indeed, they are behind many normal superhumans with more focused abilities. In short, they think you would make a very useful field agent and I'm inclined to agree."

He put the papers down and returned his eyes to mine.

"Mr Potter, Mordred is a part of the intelligence community. We are Five's and Six's primary superhuman resource. This country has more than enough superheroes and MI-13 agents to battle large threats. Your abilities, while less suited to that kind of work, are perfect for a field operative. In short, what you lack in depth you make up for in breath, and I need a man who can open a lock or disable a guard far more often than I need someone to blow a hole in a mountain." The last comment brought a very out-of-place smile to his face, but it soon disappeared.

He pulled a small pile of folders from a desk draw and passed me the topmost. "Read this."

I scanned the pages. The chief subject of the report seemed to be a supervillain named 'Spiral', real name Rita Wayword. The attached picture showed an only mostly human looking woman with six arms, long white hair and two very sharp swords. I read on and the words almost jumped out the page: dimensional travel. It was part of a section on known talents and abilities. With ravenous eyes I devoured every page, even the tiny footnotes. Spiral was a known associate of someone called 'Mojo' and commonly used by him for transport. She could open portals, mostly just through space but also through time and even dimensions.

"As I said, Mr Potter," continued Alistaire in a low and steady voice, "I can help you get home. Five and Six have extensive files on this world's superhumans and only slightly less extensive files on the superhumans of many others. Now, Ms Wayword is unlikely to willingly cooperate, but there are others who may fit the criteria better."

My eyes stayed locked on the report clutched in my hands; the picture almost called to me, the arms caught mid hypnotic dance. "You'll help me find a way home?" I said, lips dry. That promise seemed very real in that moment, no matter what Fogg might say.

"If you'll work for me, yes. Do you accept?"

Something stuck in the bottom of my throat but I nodded all the same.

"Splendid," he said, and I could hear the satisfaction. "I'm appointing you to probationary field agent status. Assuming things continue as they are, you'll be promoted to full agent in short order. Welcome to MI6 Division Mordred, Mr Potter."

I looked up from the report at last, and he held out a hand. We shook.

"Now," said Alistaire after we broke apart, "there is the matter of paperwork." He passed me another folder, along with a pen. "This is the standard form. Official Secrets Act, permission to monitor and psi-scan, employment rules."

I flipped it open and read through. It was written in plain English and quite short, which I suppose made sense. Going by what Alistaire had said the day before, Mordred wasn't supposed to be running 'superhuman' operatives or possibly even exist. It wasn't like they could take me to court over it. No, if things went really, really wrong it would be a race between a bullet to the back of my head and disapparition.

I signed on the dotted line.

"Congratulations, Agent Potter," said Alistaire and handed me the last folder. On the front was written, 'CLASSIFIED: AUTHORIZED EYES ONLY'. "Inside you will find your ID card, employment papers, a copy the regulations and other official documents. Please do not lose them. During your probationary period, you are banned from entering any Black areas, may only enter Red areas under guard and with written permission from myself, and must be supervised at all times while in Yellow areas. You are free to enter Green or White areas as you see fit. A colour-coded map of the base can be found inside the folder.

"While a member of Mordred you may either live on-site or in approved accommodation nearby. In the interim, you have been assigned a room on level five, On Site Accommodation. You will also find a debit card attached to a bank account under an alias with your first month's pay in it. Details of the cover identity for dealing with the bank are in the folder. Please use this to purchase a proper suit before the start of business next week. There is a copy of the dress code in the folder as well.

"Finally I have scheduled you for an intensive field agent course. This will take place in one month's time. In the meantime, you will join the other field agents for regular exercises. If you wish to meet them, most should be in the On Call room. It is labelled on your map. That is all."

It was a lot to take in but I did my best. "Thank you, sir," I said. Home. "I won't let you down."

"I'm sure you won't, Agent Potter. You are dismissed."

Was I meant to salute or something? Since I had no idea, I just nodded, turned and left.

* * *

Once back in the outer office, I fished around in the folder and found the map. It seemed simple enough and I'd been right; Mordred had seven levels.

_Ground - Loading docks and street level__  
__Level 1 - Planning and Operations__  
__Level 2 - Archives__  
__Level 3 - Research and Development__  
__Level 4 - The Vault__  
__Level 5 - On Site Accommodation__  
__Level 6 - Prisoner Containment_

Planning and Operations, where I was now, was mostly a green colour, with orange and red rooms and a few white corridors. Archives was the same. Research and Development was an almost solid yellow, with a few pieces of red and a single black square near the centre. The Vault was solid black, which was not surprising given its name. On Site Accommodation was green and white, though I doubt I was allowed to break into other people's rooms. Finally Prisoner Containment was an almost solid red, with some large black sections.

Since Alistaire had more or less told me to visit the other field agents in the On Call room, that's what I did. It was on the same floor as Alistaire's office but on the other side, meaning I didn't have far to go.

There were four people in the room when I knocked and entered. A tall man with a vulpine face languished on a sofa. Opposite him in an armchair was a faintly Indian woman with a perpetual scowl. A taller woman with long black hair stood by a snooker table, and a genderless figure dressed all in black leant against the far wall. A golden mask covered his face.

"Yeah?" said the shorter of the two women. "What do you want?"

Perhaps not the most auspicious start to a working relationship but what would I know? I was lousy at Divination and had the OWL to prove it.

"Hi," I said and put on my best smile. "I'm Harry Potter. I've just been made a provisional field agent. Mr Stuart suggested I come here."

The shorter woman snorted and looked back at the magazine in her lap. The taller scowled but not at anyone in particular, just the universe in general. "Fine," she said. "Sit up Kailen. You too Reeves."

The man lying on the couch opened one eye. "We have a visitor?" he said. "To what do we own this great pleasure?"

The shorter woman muttered something, possibly involving fucking fairies, which couldn't be fun. Fairies were tiny things and known to bite.

"I'm Blackhole," said the taller woman. "That's Malon Reeves." She jerked a finger towards the shorter woman. "That's Kailen on the sofa. And our masked friend here goes by Trinidad these days."

"Charmed," said Trinidad, bobbing his golden masked head. He sounded male.

"So who are you?" said 'Blackhole', which seemed a very strange name to me. "I heard we were getting someone new but that's all."

"Harry Potter," I said and tried for a self-deprecating smile. "They tell me I'm from another dimension."

"Another dimension, my dear Harry Potter?" said Kailen, opening both eyes. "From which far sprung realm do you join us? Although it pains me to be the one to tell you, this plane can be frightfully dull at times."

"No idea," I said, ignoring the second part of his comment because it made no sense. "That's one of the questions I'm getting help with."

"Kailen's from Otherworld," said Malon. "Freaking fantasy place."

"Otherworld?" I said, then some things slotted into place. "You're from another dimension?" Understandably this roused my interest.

Kailen rose, all languid grace, and looked at me. His teeth were too long and little too sharp, and his ears met in angled points.

"I do have that august honour, yes," he said. "But I now call this fair plane home despite all its many, varied and I might add numerous faults. There was a..." He paused and tapped one long finger against his sculpted jaw. "Misunderstanding."

"He fucked one of Oberon's daughters and had to make a fast exit," said Malon, a wicked smile on her face. The magazine lay forgotten on her lap.

"That I did," said Kailen, nodding his head, seemingly not at all ashamed of the revelation. "But how could I say no to such a perfect flower? Sadly, her father did not see it that way and I had to leave in a hurry to avoid a rather unsightly, not to mention rather painful death. Luckily some of the Walker Paths yet remained open."

"Wait," I said. "There are paths to this Otherworld place? And it's another dimension? Could I go home?"

"Once perhaps," said Kailen and shrugged. "But no longer, I fear. Oberon has sealed the gates. There is evil loose in Otherworld and he intends to hunt his prey."

"Oberon?" All I could think of was A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"King of the fairies," said Kailen and waved a hand. "Many of the fae and forgotten call Otherworld home. Fairies, elves, the Tuatha Da Danaan, ogres, giants, goblins and ghouls. It is a nexus of sorts, through which many worlds can be reached, and its master changes as do the seasons. Today, Oberon is ascendant. Tomorrow, who can say?"

"Yeah," said Malon, the wicked smile growing into an evil smirk, "and Kailen's managed to piss them all off."

"He is remarkably adept," said Blackhole, a faint smile on her otherwise impassive face.

"You're so kind," he said and swept a bow.

Fairies, elves, giants, goblins? Those things existed in the Wizarding World but I had a hard time imagining how any kind of fairy could be in charge. They were tiny things — miniature humans with insect wings, the barest spark of magic and animal minds.

"What do you mean by fairies?" I said and explained what they were as far as I was concerned.

When I was done, Malon snorted. "Kailen's a fairy," she said. "I only wish he couldn't talk."

Blackhole frowned at Malon, but Kailen didn't seem overly concerned and just nodded. "It is truly an honour to hear the praise one such as you heaps upon one such as I," he said before turning back to me. "We are a people of many forms. While in this world, I prefer this one. At different times I have taken others." Once more he smiled and his teeth were still far too sharp.

"So Kailen's a fairy," I said to Malon. "What does that make you?"

"Private," said Malon and her frown settled into something harder.

"The same I'm afraid," said Trinidad and moved his weight from one foot to the other. Wiry muscles shifted beneath his uniform. It made me conscious of the shabby state of my own clothes.

"I'm the one you take orders from," said Blackhole and looked me in the eye. Hers were onyx chips, hard and sharp.

With that thrilling and thorough disclosure, I took my leave. I had a room to explore.

* * *

Since Mordred's lifts were needlessly complicated, I took the stairs. They too were guarded by key card locked doors but some kindly soul had wedged them open, using a half brick. Merlin bless the British can-do spirit.

Alistaire's map labelled my room with a small star, on the On Site Accommodation level, so that's where I headed. The journey also gave me the opportunity to let my eyes wander.

Archives was one floor below Planning and Operations, and I stuck my head through the door. The stairwell opened into a short foyer and then, beyond a swung wide set of doors, into a larger room. Half looked to be an old fashioned library but the other more closely resembled a hi-tech spy lair, computers, TVs and a cartoon fairy waving her arms. The last took up most of one of the wall monitors. I decided not to comment.

Next came Research and Development, which I'd already seen, and below that the Vault. A huge metal airlock guarded the entrance, glowing panels and flickering energy fields. No half bricks there.

On Site Accommodation could have been any apartment building. It looked to be nothing more than a network of corridors lined with doors, each with a small number plate. My new 'home' was C14.

The door clicked open when I swiped my key card and I stepped inside. There was a bed, wardrobe, desk and a small bathroom. I looked inside that too. Toilet, sink and shower, the first two white ceramic, the last plastic and stainless steel. The carpet was short and hard, and the bedding looked coarse. It wasn't Shell Cottage. The night seemed very cold.

* * *

Morning came, and it was a Saturday. This was the spy life, though, and I was sure that meant I had plenty to do.

After taking a shower, I looked over my clothes. They were prison issue, coarse and grey. Not the kind of thing I wanted to wear.

"Right," I said and readied my wand. "We'll see about this."

On my eighteenth birthday I'd had a party. It had been a large one, with most of my friends gathered, which was no mean thing considering we were fighting a war. Death and combat had been forgotten for one night of food, drink and merriment. The memory made my smile. Drunken Neville could be surprisingly eloquent.

Hermione had given me 'Dropping the Portcullis – A Guide to Protective Spell Casting' by Theodore Warder, a fascinating textbook and one of the few I sat down to read from cover to cover. Ron went with a collection of chocolate figurines, made in our images. And I have to say, I looked quite dashing in chocolate, even if I do say so myself. Ginny had gone with a book too, if one quite different from Hermione's: 'Grandmother Megan's Patented Clothing Charms'. That's what I turned to now. For a book I'd initially looked on with scepticism, it was more than pulling its weight.

"Scourgify kleed!" I said and swished my wand up and down the trousers, shirt and underwear. The cloth twitched, then settled in place, perfectly clean. According to Grandmother Megan, normal cleaning charms could damage clothes and she helpfully provided her own alternatives. My clothes did seem a bit softer after I started adding the subordinate incantation to the Scouring Charm.

Next came a transfiguration spell to turn the material into something softer, a Colour Changing Charm to turn the garments black and I finished by drawing my wand around the neck of the shirt. Slowly, inch by inch, an old-fashioned collar grew up, thick and starched. Grandmother Megan was a firm believer in shirts and being able to dress smartly at a moment's notice.

Satisfied with my appearance, and that Grandmother Megan wouldn't be too ashamed, I dressed and turned to leave. There was a note under my door.

'Mr Potter,' it read. 'Please come to my office, Floor Three, Room 3B. I have some more tests I would like to run. Doctor Lorance Hartwell.'

Well, that answered my question about what I was meant to do.

The door clicked on my way out, my own personal 'have a good day dear'.

* * *

Lorance's office was on Research and Development, near the testing laboratory I'd visited the day before. It meant I needed an escort but that wasn't a problem; I just asked at the reception desk guarding the entrance to the floor proper and they sent me off with a harried looking intern. Said intern walked me to my destination, then hurried off. That wasn't how it was meant to work, I was pretty sure, but I wasn't going to complain. I just knocked on the door and said, "Doctor Hartwell, it's Harry Potter. You sent for me."

There was a rustling of paper from inside and then a voice. "Ah, Mr Potter. Please come in."

I did so. The room was small and cramped, the little space available taken up by an extensive set of book shelves and a large desk. They were all covered with loose paper.

"Yes, um, where was I," said Lorance as he stood up. "Ah, here." He found his suit jacket and pulled it on. "This way please."

It was still early in the morning and Mordred was only just getting up to speed. Lorance made do with only a handful of apologies on the journey.

"This is one of our smaller testing rooms," he said as we entered a circular room, just down the corridor from his office. A sweeping spiral of silver circuitry was built into the floor. It started from just to the left of the door, circled the room five times and then merged with a hip high pillar at the room's centre. "Mys-Tech was doing, um, something here. We were never quite sure what."

"Mys-Tech?"

"A large multi-national company," explained Lorance, "active five, maybe ten, years ago." He frowned, skin wrinkling. "I was never entirely sure about the full story but they disappeared and the intelligence community took over a number of their black facilities. I can only guess they were involved in a number of things they shouldn't have been. But enough of all that." He pointed to a worktable curving around one wall. Three blank boxes stood on it. "We don't need any of this equipment. Not that it's not interesting. Why, Ms Beckley, she performed some quite fascinating experiments which proved..." He stopped and shook himself. "That's not important. I just wanted a null place and this serves that purpose. Please look at the boxes. No magic please. Tell me which one is different from the rest."

With that kind of completely satisfying explanation, how could I refuse?

The boxes were identical from what I could see, smooth steel blocks about thirty centimetres long by ten wide and high. I picked them up in turn, feeling their weight and heft. All were clearly hollow and, just as clearly, all contained something inside. When I picked up last, it tingled in my hand, a static electric sensation.

"This one feels odd," I said. Odd wasn't quite right but it was the closest I could come.

"It's as I thought," he said, nodding. "You're mystically sensitive."

"Mystically what?" I said.

"Sensitive. It means you can sense when magic is performed."

That... That really didn't make sense. Magic was magic. You could see or feel the spell-light, if it was that kind of spell; hear the incantation, if it was said out loud; and experience the effects, if there were any, but feel magic itself? Magic wasn't like that. Magic was the source of those things; it didn't exist separate from them.

I said as much to Lorance and he nodded. "I saw your reaction to the circle yesterday but you didn't mention anything of the kind. In this universe, the ability to sense magic is common to most of the mystically adept. If I was to venture an explanation, your ability to wield the magic of your universe, must make you sensitive to the magic of this."

That seemed reasonable, and I really hoped it was true. The only other explanation involved prophecies, Killing Curses, and Horcrux-scars — things I wanted nothing to do with.

There was a knock on the door and John Taylor stuck his head in. His brown hair was messier than normal and the stubble was rougher too.

"Lorance," said John, "we need you up in Archives. We're taking AEON out the network and need you to take down the sorcerous wards."

"Is this about the..." Lorance glanced at me. "The you know what?"

"Yes. We've given up conventional methods."

"What's aeon?" I asked.

The two men shared a look. After a few seconds John said, "AEON is one of our three supercomputers, the Kree model. It's warded by magical protections to stop intrusion, and I need Lorance here to take them down before we can move it."

"It's all very hush-hush," said Lorance, lowering his voice slightly. "Vault business, which means Black. Well above your security clearance."

I nodded. It was to be expected if not desired.

"I'll tell you what," said Lorance, light blossoming on his normally slightly bemused face. "Why don't you come up to Archives with me? I'll introduce you to Robin Cunnings. He's one of the heads of Archives."

* * *

So up we went. We took the lift, and after the normal rigmarole with key cards, thumbprints and no external sign of the lift's current location, we walked out into Archives. It was much as my brief glance had indicated. The left-hand side looked like a piece of Hogwarts' library, transported across dimensions, while the right appeared the pinnacle of modern. Despite that nineteen eighties technology appeared that way to me, I had a feeling that the right-hand side would look modern to anyone.

"Lorance, John," said a man, waving his hand. "AEON's over here." He was tall, with a boxish face and short brown hair. Normal looking to tell the truth. We walked over.

"Mr Cunnings," said Lorance, "this is Harry Potter. Mr Potter, this is Robin Cunnings, joint Head of Archives."

"Call me Robin," said Robin and stuck out his hand. "Just no boy wonder jokes. I might work with superheroes but that doesn't make me one."

I took it and shook. "You can call me Harry," I said, then added, "Boy wonder?" It rang a bell but I couldn't place it.

"Old comic character," he said. "Robin the Boy Wonder, sidekick to Batman. Having my name in this line of work can be a chore." He sighed dramatically.

"I'm sure," I said and chuckled, even though I didn't get the joke. Though... Come to think of it, I did seem to remember a Robin. Red costume, yellow cloak?

Introductions done, Robin clapped his hands together. "Lorance, are you ready to get to work?"

Lorance pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded. "Whenever you are."

"Good. I'll just make sure Faye doesn't get in your way. Faye!"

One of the room's large TVs burst to life, the picture changing from a sedately spinning black spear to a cartoon fairy. It, or rather she, had a head of long blond hair, a flowing dress made of leaves and a large pair of butterfly wings. In other words, she looked like a slightly anthropomorphized fairy from my world.

The cartoon image waved her hands and said, "Yes?" Her voice was slightly sing-song and came from a nearby set of speakers.

"Faye, dear," said Robin. "You're not in AEON are you?"

"Nu'hu," she said, shaking her head. Because of her cartoon proportions, this involved swinging everything else too, hair, dress, body and wings.

"Good, well get in your PDA to be sure. I don't want you getting hurt." He paused. "Oh, and while you're here. I've got someone new for you to meet."

Her face lit up as if enchanted with a Lumos Charm and her eyes flicked about the room, as if she really was looking out from the monitor. They were violet and danced with energy.

"Someone new!" she said. "Great! Who! Who! Who!" Her eyes found me. "You're new!" It was more accusation than statement, never mind question. "I'm Faye; what's your name!"

Robin waved me forward.

"Err," I said, "hello." Recent practice notwithstanding, talking to fairies was outside of my experience, cartoon ones most of all. "I'm Harry Potter, a new agent here."

The little fairy's eyes widened to an almost comical extent. It would've been impossible for a human but she was a cartoon image and not constrained by the petty limits of biology.

"You're a field agent! I want to be a field agent when I grow up but Daddy won't let me."

"Your daddy?" I asked. How could a computer image possibly have a father?

"Robin of course!" she said.

Right. That made as much sense as anything in this messed up world. "Sorry if this comes as, ah, insensitive," I said, "but what... are you?"

Faye puffed up her chest, threw out her wings and imitated Hermione by setting her hands on her hips. "I'm a fairy of course!" she said.

"Like Kailen?" I said. Kailen claimed to be a fairy from Otherworld, some sort of alternate dimension. Was Faye from the same place? Going by her face, she was not. She scowled and I hastily moved on. "Do fairies typically live in computers?"

"No silly," said Faye, her, well, fey mood forgotten. She giggled. "Daddy says I'm special!"

"Maybe I can explain," said Robin, a note of humour in his voice. "Faye here is the result of an accident."

Faye's eyes widened and glittered with unshed tears.

"A very happy accident," said Robin, holding up both hands. "When I started digitizing our archived books — that is, scanning all the texts you see on the shelves for easy use and reference — a large amount of mystical power began to build up in the system. Many of these books contain significant power and being digitized did nothing to change that. Overtime the amount of energy in the servers grew. It combined with the sorcerous protections and reached something of a critical mass. This coincided with one of my experiments. I was attempting to use a low-level finding spell to make a pattern matching algorithm more efficient. The experiment didn't work as I intended but it did give rise to Faye."

That made some sense, and I nodded my head. Complex magic coming alive — and getting Ideas — was something of a problem in the Wizarding World. The Ford Anglia from my second year at Hogwarts was perhaps the most memorable — and terrifying — example but it was far from the only one. Whether it was invisible invisibility text books, Care of Magical Creatures tomes which bit or even Hogwarts herself, many enchanted objects had some degree of intelligence.

"You're not shocked?" asked Robin raising an eyebrow. Lorance looked at me as well.

"No," I said and shrugged. "Seems normal to me. I was in a car once which decided it would rather live free in the forest. Though to be fair, we _had_ just crashed it."

"Fascinating," said Robert, and Lorance made a quick note in a pocket-book.

"As interesting as this is," said John and began walking towards a bank of technological whatsits. "We really must move AEON down to the Vault."

"Of course, of course," said Robin. "Faye, into your PDA."

"But I don't wanna!" she said and stomped one cartoon foot. "It's boring!"

"I'm sure Harry here will keep you entertained."

"Really!"

Robin looked to me, and I shrugged. "Sure," I said.

The little fairy smiled like the sun, scrunched up her eyes and disappeared from the large TV. There was a ping and she reappeared on the screen of a small, handheld device, sitting in some sort of plastic cradle.

"Harry," said John. He was standing in front of a blinking box, covered in lines of red, green and blue diodes. A half glass sphere rose out the top, in which spun transient traceries of light, dancing a complicated dance. Ron's teacups would've been impressed. Was this AEON? If so, it looked... supercomputery?

"If you give me a few hours to move AEON to the Vault and get things set up," continued John, "I've got equipment for you. Meet me in my office, 15N, Research and Development?"

"Okay," I said and looked around. What was I going to do in the meantime? Maybe have a look through the library? I might even strike gold and find a spell book from my universe. I'd fallen between the cracks in space-time; it wasn't beyond belief others things would've too. Of course, with my luck it would be an extra vicious copy of The Monster Book of Monsters.

"Why don't you take Faye for a walk," said Robin, answering my question for me. "The hot breakfast is just starting in the cafeteria and Faye likes to get out and about."

"Really!" said Faye, jumping up and down. "Really! Really! Really! Really!"

"Um, okay," I said and almost took a step back. An excited Faye was an intimidating prospect, despite being all of an inch tall. Not that I really minded. I wasn't Hermione. A brand new library to explore didn't make me grab my significant other and run to the nearest bedroom.

"Good, good," said Robin and picked the device Faye had moved to. "This is Faye's PDA. She can live in here for a while and it lets me carry her about."

"When I have too," said Faye and frowned, but she didn't look truly unhappy. In fact, there was a curve to the edge of her cartoon lips that hinted at a hidden smile. It made me wonder if her other outbursts had been similarly faked, no doubt as part of a Machiavellian manipulation plot, the kind all small children were masters of.

"Yes, well," said Robert. "She can see from the cameras here and here, one front and one back. Microphone's here, so she can hear you, and the PDA's equipped with Wi-Fi. This switch on the side turns it on and off; keep it on. That way she can ask the network if she needs something. She has all the passwords, even the ones I'd rather she didn't."

"That's right!" said Faye, lips curving in an almost feline way. She was very much the cat who ate the cream.

He held out the PDA and I took it. Faye waved, her face the sun goddess of an all-feline pantheon.

"Breakfast it is," I said.

"Onwards!" she said and stuck out an imperious hand.

As I headed back towards the lifts, Lorance rolled up his sleeves and began chanting under his breath. The words danced against my skin like an icy breeze and I shivered. Sensing magic was going to take some getting used to.


	3. Chapter 3

"So," I said, as we waited for the lift, "you live in the computers?"

"Yep," said Faye, nodding her cartoon head.

"What's that like?" It all seemed very strange to me but maybe it shouldn't have. Was it really that different from Hogwarts' paintings?

"It's great!" she said. "I can see anything and go anywhere. 'Cept when I'm stuck in this PDA." She kicked an icon on the PDA's small screen — a folder full of paper — and it shot off to one side.

"You don't like the PDA?" It looked okay to me, sleek and shiny.

"It's too small," said Faye and spread her arms and wings wide. "I can't stretch out."

That made as much sense as anything else. What I knew of this world's magic was scarcely more than any world's computers.

"Do you have to go in the PDA much?"

She shook her head. "Nu'hu. Only when Daddy goes somewhere not on the network or is doing something big on the servers. Stupid hard drive."

"Hard drive?" I asked.

"Yeah." She nodded and snapped her fingers. "Stupid hard drive." A photo appeared, taking up half the screen. It showed a small white box marked with a stylized number four. "It's what Daddy is working on in the Vault."

"You can see into the Vault?" Wasn't it meant to be super secure or something? More to the point, wasn't I meant not to know?

"No," said Faye and shook her head. "But I can see through the security cameras in the rest of the base and they performed an initial inspection in Research and Development." The cat who ate the cream was back. In fact, this one seemed to have made off with the whole cow.

Now that I looked at it, the '4' was tickling something at the back of my mind but I couldn't place it.

"Do you know what the four means?" I asked.

"Yep," said Faye and clicked her fingers again. The picture changed, this time showing a team of four people. I said 'people' but such a usage required stretching the term quite a bit. One appeared to be some kind of rocky troll and another was on fire, like one of Luna's made-up Heliopaths. The man and woman seemed normal enough, though, except for perhaps their dress sense. Tight blue uniforms had never been in style, and I doubted they ever would be.

"Who are they?"

"The Fantastic Four," said Faye without hesitation. "They're famous."

Superheroes then. From the way Fogg had spoken, I wondered if it was possible to be well-known for any other reason.

"Thanks, Faye," I said. "What else do you know?"

"I know lots of things," she said, smiling. "I'm special."

Right. Faye really was childlike. "I meant about the Fantastic Four."

"Silly," she said, giggling, and clicked her fingers. An old fashioned mortarboard-hat appeared on her head and she drew a meter stick from one of the folders. "They're an American superhero team, led by Reed Richards, one of the smartest men in the world. The rocky guy is the Thing, the on-fire-guy is the Human Torch and the girl is the Invisible Woman. They were the first modern superhero team since the Invaders. I've got the MI6 files if you want to read them." She proffered a handful of digital icons.

"Maybe later," I said but inside my eyes widened a fraction. She had access to no-doubt highly classified files. More importantly, she was willing to just hand them out. "Faye, how did you know that?"

"I was born in Archives' computer systems, remember! I know lots of things."

"Right, right. You really are something."

"I'm special?" she said, hands tugging the edge of her dress coyly.

Despite feeling that I was walking into something, I nodded.

The lift doors slipped open and I stepped inside, sandwiched between a pair of chattering business women. Faye either didn't notice or didn't care.

"Told you I'm special," she said and her voice took on a sing-song tone. "I'm special. I'm special. I'm special. I'm..."

The women on either side sent me some very strange looks. It was time to take action, for all our sakes.

"Faye," I said in a hushed whisper. When that didn't work I spoke louder. "Faye!" That got her attention and the little cartoon fairy swivelled to look at me. "We all know you're special, but if you keep telling everyone you might stop being so special, understand?"

She froze, eyes opened wide. "I'll stop being special! It's not too late is it?" It sounded like genuine terror in her voice.

"No, no, you're still special," I said, "but you better stop now just to make sure."

"Okay!" she said, the worry gone as fast as it came. Oh the ability of small children, and even smaller fairies, to bounce back from anything, how I envied them.

* * *

The lift doors clicked open and I stepped out, PDA clutched in my hands. The cafeteria was a collection of rooms on the Planning and Operations level, slightly off to one side. It wasn't a long walk.

"Ooh, Ooh," said Faye, "what's that!" It was a bit hard to tell with just a 2D screen but she seemed to be pointing at a large tub of sausages.

"Sausages," I said. "You eat them for breakfast. I thought you knew stuff like this."

"Only things on Archives' computers," she said, shaking her head. "We're not connected to the Internet down here."

"Internet?"

Faye's eyes danced with excitement. "It's like the most amazing place ever!" she said. "Daddy let me go there once and there were so many sites and things to read and..." She leaned in closer, or did the two-dimensional equivalent anyway. "Women's naughty bits!" That last brought a series of giggles from her and made me decide I really didn't want to know.

While Faye was giggling behind her hands — it was clearly very funny — I got my breakfast: toast, orange juice and some sausages since Faye was interested in them. Unsurprisingly, there was no pumpkin juice or butter beer.

"Faye," I said, sitting down. "Faye! Joke's over." She clearly knew a lot and it was time to put that to my advantage.

She quieted, only letting loose the occasional snicker.

"So," I said, "if I'm going to be a field agent, what can you tell me about my teammates?"

"Lots!" said Faye at once. "What do you want to know?"

"Let's start with how many." I'd met four; was that everyone? There couldn't be many given the way Alistaire jumped at an unknown such as myself.

"There are twenty-nine field agents working for Mordred," said Faye, once more back in her teacher's garb. "Twenty five are normal humans or have negligible talents. Daddy calls them maybe psychics. Four have real superpowers, though. Do you have powers?"

"I cast magic," I said, carefully avoiding any use of the 'S' term, and blew some sparks from my wand. That drew some stares but Faye clapped her hands, clearly delighted.

"There's also a flight, that's twenty eight soldiers, loaned to us from the Royal Air Force Regiment on a rotatory basis," said Faye once she'd calmed down. "But none of them have powers. Just guns. I don't like guns." She shivered, wings rippling.

"The ones with superpowers are Kailen, Malon, Blackhole and Trinidad?" I said. I'd met all four the day before in the On Call room.

"Ah-huh," she said, nodding. "Trinidad's nice but Kailen's a big meanie. He called me pipsqueak!" After I agreed that this was a truly terrible thing to do, she continued. "Malon's okay some of the time but she shouts at me when I try and have fun. Blackhole's just no fun at all."

"What else do you know about them?" I said.

"Trinidad's really called Night Raven," she said. "He's really old and immortal or something. We're meant to pretend Night Raven is dead, though. The big meanie's a fairy but not a proper fairy like me and Malon's a mutant who can throw energy blasts. She almost died a few years ago and spent a long time in a coma. Mr Stuart made her better and now she works for us. Blackhole's the team leader. She's a former STRIKE Operations Division agent who fell off the radar after the agency collapsed. Alistaire Stuart found her working in Africa as a mercenary and offered her the chance to lead the new Mordred field team."

"And I suppose you can read their personnel files too?" I said, remembering the fistful of documents she'd produced on the Fantastic Four.

"Nope," said Faye. "They're encrypted and I can't read them, but I was watching when they were last updated and I read them then."

Right. Note to self, never get Faye angry at me. She had the entire place wired to be her personal plaything.

"You said Malon can throw energy blasts, but what can the others do?"

Faye clicked her fingers and some pictures appeared. The first was of Kailen, aka 'the big meanie', a bar of burning white light in one hand.

"He," said Faye, infusing the word with all the world's evils, "has a moderate level of enhanced strength, speed and senses, a sensitivity to magical energy and the ability to cast a weak fairy glamour. The sword is Claíomh Solais, one of the four jewels of the Tuatha Dé Danann. It can cut through almost anything, glows brightly when drawn and can give a limited form of battle precognition."

Kailen's picture disappeared and was replaced by one of Trinidad/Night Raven, black body suit, golden mask and two silver pistols. "Trinidad is an excellent marksman, hand-to-hand fighter and detective. After being exposed to a chemical toxin created by his nemesis Yi Yang, he became immortal and highly resistant to all forms of damage."

The picture changed once more, this time to show Blackhole. She wore black military gear and her hair was pulled back in a sharp ponytail. A pistol hung at her hip. "Blackhole's real name is Justine Beckley but she's not nice when you call her that. She has the power to create temporary holes through solid matter. The source of her power is unknown but it is linked to the Darkforce dimension."

"And Malon makes four," I said under my breath. "Thanks Faye. I really appreciate this."

She beamed at me. "You're welcome Harry," she said and began playing with the hem of her dress. That meant she was up to something. "Say, do you want to show me some magic? I like watching magic but I'm not allowed because I'm too noisy and sometimes it's dangerous."

And no doubt you watch from the security cameras all the same, I thought but didn't say. Instead I sighed and said, "Fine. Just let me finish up my breakfast." The sausages really were very good.

* * *

"And I can then combine the two spells using Salvio hexia," I said. We were back in my room and I was showing her the rudiments of creating magical defences.

"Show me!" she said.

Anything for a pretty lady... "Protego Salvio hexia Stupefy!" I said and tapped the chalk line I'd drawn in front of my door, careful not to warp the spells with intent. There was a flicker of light and a sparkling red shield erupted up, a magical wall.

Faye's face locked into a fierce mask of concentration. After a few seconds she said, "And that combined a Shielding Charm and a Stunning Spell? Not two spells on the same object, but one spell with the properties of both?"

"Yes," I said, nodding. In truth she understood it better than John and Lorance in many ways. "The Joining Spell — Salvio hexia — merges the effects of the spells which come before and after it. It's really the cornerstone of defensive casting. Two spells cast on the same object will always merge to some extent but the Joining Spell makes sure they do it in a correct and controlled way, like mortar between bricks. In this case, I get a shield which will stun anyone who tries to break it."

"And you need the chalk so the magic knows what to do!" She smiled widely and almost jumped up and down. As it was, her wings buzzed.

"That's right." She really was better than the two 'experts' at this. "You can't use intent to tell spells what to do when casting defensive magic or enchanting something, so you need to use a physical guide. Walking a circle, a pre-existing spell, some kind of physical mark."

"Because if you use intent the spells are different from normal?"

"Right again. If you cast spells using intent, you change them, and once a spell is changed, you can't predict what it will do anymore. Normally a Shielding Charm and a Stunning Spell work well together, but if I used intent to, say, make the Shielding Charm very big it might all blow up in my face. Back home there are whole fold out charts saying which spells work with other spells, along with the main subordinate incantations. It's all very technical." Which made it all the more surprising that I had a head for it.

"So if you tried to use that, um, Blasting Curse you showed me with that Colloportus spell it wouldn't work?"

I looked at her a bit odd. "That's right. How'd you know that?" The fact that a Blasting Curse wouldn't play nice with the Locking Spell was one of the first things I'd learnt from 'Dropping the Portcullis'. It was a lesson some wizards learnt the hard way, when the compound spell turned back on itself and sent an eruption of destructive magic right back at the caster. If you wanted a door which kicked back, best all round to use the Reductor Curse.

Faye shrugged, wings fluttering in a different way. While I was no expert on fairy body language, it looked nervous. "Just makes sense."

She was right; it did make sense, but only after you got into the nitty-gritty of how spells worked. Maybe it wouldn't be a complete waste of time to search Archives' library for a spell book from my universe? It was something to look into later.

"That'll have to do for today," I said and waved my wand, muttering counter-curses under my breath. The shield on the door dissolved. "I have to go meet John in his office."

"Can I come?" said Faye, giving me her best smile. Being a cartoon childlike fairy, her best really was very good.

Since taking her 'home' would've involved going right past my destination, I agreed and we set off.

* * *

John Taylor's office was easy to find and my Research and Development guide-slash-guard left me at the door. The Yellow room rule was getting annoying. I pushed the buzzer and waited.

"Yes," said a tinny voice. It sounded like John, if quite distorted.

"Harry Potter," I said. "You asked me to come."

"And me!" said Faye. "Don't forget about me."

"Harry Potter and Faye," I said.

John chuckled and buzzed me in.

The room was far larger than Lorance's and also less cluttered despite containing far more paraphernalia. Work tables lined the walls, filled with complicated looking technical equipment, and a stone table sat in the middle, on which lay a corpse. No. I looked again. Not a corpse. Some kind of robot, an android I supposed since it looked human. Mechanical guts spilled out its broken open chest, wires, tubes and blocks of circuitry.

"Welcome to my private workshop," said John, standing up from a desk at the far end.

"Thank you for having me," I said and it only took a small effort to stop from adding, 'I think'. Part of that was probably because I couldn't look away from the robot. It was far too life like. "What is that?"

John let out a soft laugh. "Yes, it does take some people the wrong way. It's an LMD. Sorry, Life Model Decoy, a kind of robot used by S.H.I.E.L.D. to impersonate important people. I'm trying to figure out how it works. Something like that could be invaluable to the intelligence community. Trawlers picked up a pair of them in the North Sea. I got one and mainstream Six has the other."

"Shield?" I asked, glancing down at Faye, then up at John.

Faye flickered and donned her mortar-board hat. A picture appeared — a stylised black bird, wings spread, inside a white circle.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.," she said, "Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate. They were a super spy organization with international jurisdiction, officially under the control of the United Nations but in actuality it was mostly run by the United States of America, since they were its primary funder. The American President dissolved it a few months ago. Well technically he just removed America's funding and the rights-of-use to certain technologies but since they were responsible for seventy percent of the budget it amounted to much the same thing." She smiled at me. "Or that's what the file said."

"Thanks," I said and gave Faye a lopsided grin.

"As always Faye is quite correct," said John. "This particular LMD was probably lost during the Skrull Invasion. S.H.I.E.L.D. was heavily infiltrated even before that sorry episode and suffered massive losses."

"The Skrulls were the shapeshifters, right?" I said. Keeping all this new history straight was something of a chore. Skrulls, at least, were easier than most. They were big, green and looked like Dobby on steroids.

"Yes," said John, a shadow passing over his face. "Among other things."

Ah... People seemed to be sensitive on the whole Skrull subject, possibly as a result of the recent invasion. I nodded my head.

"Well," said John, pulling himself together. "Let's get you kitted out. I've had my staff look out the standard issue." He motioned to a worryingly large pile lying off to one side. "We have two sets of black combats, one set of desert gear, one backpack, two water canteens, one set of waterproofs and..." He grabbed up a list and handed it to me. "A lot of other things. Read the list when you have a chance."

"Thank you, Mr Taylor," I said and nodded my head. Faye decided to mimic the motion but I was the only one in a position to see.

"While I've got you..." said John and smiled. As smiles went, it wasn't an honest expression of his innermost feelings. He wanted something.

"Yes?" I said.

"Would you be willing to field test some of my creations?" The smile turned a bit more honest and a touch hopeful.

"Creations?" I said. "You mean spy gadgets?"

"Well, I wouldn't call them that," said John, "but in layman's terms, yes. Spy gadgets."

Play it cool, Potter. Merlin, who was I kidding? What self-respecting English boy would turn down a free trip to Q's sweet shop? Even Ron, whose knowledge of muggle culture began and ended with being able to dress vaguely right, had been impressed after I'd spent a day explaining it all to him. True, there was a compelling motive force behind the discussion (discovering the source of Rita Skeeter's spying) but the point still stood.

"I might be amenable," I said.

John grew a crooked smile and walked over to a wall covered with small plastic boxes. He began to sort through them.

"How would you like a poisonous gas ring?" he said, holding up just such an item. It was a narrow band of gold but sported a large head, almost like a signet. "There are some issues with gas volume and direction, but I'm sure with some proper field testing those can be sorted out..."

He saw my face. Maybe there was a reason he needed to foist his inventions off on the new guy?

"Never mind, never mind," he said. "Maybe this will be a little more up your alley." He bent down, pulled out one of the lower draws and removed what looked like a leather bracer, similar to what a centaur would use during archery. Its single odd feature was a metal rivet fixed in the centre. He held it up to me. "Put it on your arm. Left would probably be best, stud to the outside."

I took it gingerly and strapped it to my left forearm. The ring had 'issues'. Who knew what this would do?

"What now?" I said and held up my arm. The leather was snug and tight but not at all unpleasant.

"Make a fist and think Activate," said John. He demonstrated with his own hand.

Right, once more into the dragon's maw... It wasn't like I hadn't made a career of doing terminally stupid things. I made a fist, shouted 'Activate' mentally, as if casting a non-verbal spell and waited. I didn't wait for long.

A single heartbeat later, a long 'V' of metal shot from the stud and swung round, like an unfolding fan. There was the swish of well-oiled metal on metal, a faint clink as the final piece settled into place and it was done. I was left with a full disc of metal attached to my wrist, about a foot and a half across.

"It's a buckler?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

"It's more than that," said John. "The shield is made from a titanium alloy, probably one of the strongest conventional substances in the world. Yes, Adamantium and the like are stronger but even the false kind is near impossible to acquire. More importantly, though, is the thin layer of Vibranium on top of the shield. It might not be as strong as Captain America's but it's the best I can do."

"What's Vibranium and who's Captain America?" I asked. Come to that, what was Adamantium? I was tempted to ask that too, but I had enough questions without getting into things my buckler was not.

"Vibranium is a unique metal from Wakanda," said John, "a country in Africa. It absorbs all vibrations that comes in contact with it. That means if you block something fast and heavy with your buckler, your arm won't shatter from the impact. You'll still have to deal with most of the momentum however."

Maybe the shield would have its uses. Being able to block and still have my wand free could save my life and Merlin knew it could use all the saving it could get.

"And Captain America?" I said. Fogg had said something about him, I was sure, but I couldn't remember what.

"He was an American Superhero," said Faye, her voice unusually sombre, "a product of their Super Soldier program. He had an indestructible shield made from Vibranium fused with an experimental Iron Alloy, one of the precursors to Adamantium. He died a few years ago."

Faye was not in her usual schoolmaster's hat; the only unusual thing she wore was a sombre expression. It was very out of place.

"Now," said John, breaking the melancholy mood, "as I said, your shield is not indestructible, like Captain America's, so it will bend and buckle with use. Bring it back to me every so often so I can make sure it's okay and I'll want to know how it works out. To retract it, just make a fist and think 'Deactivate'.

I did as instructed and watched the disc disappear back into the bracer. It was almost hypnotic, the sound of metal on metal, the slink, slink of concertinaing steel. Or titanium alloys as the case may be...

Just as I was considering activating and deactivating it a few more times, a phone rang, breaking the atmosphere.

John picked it up and said, "Yes. John Taylor speaking."

There was a murmur from the earpiece, but I couldn't make out what was said. It must have been bad news, though, because John sighed in disappointment.

"Well unplug everything and put the hard drive in storage. Standard format and reinstall on AEON before returning it."

So they hadn't been able to get into the hard drive? Commenting would probably be a mistake; I already knew far more than I was meant to.

"Very well," said John, after a few more seconds of listening. "Start on the Easy Tiger files. That should keep us busy for the next few years."

After John put down the phone he turned his attention back to me. "Is that everything I need?" I said.

"Yes," said John, "unless you want a flamethrower shaving-cream can." He paused. "You don't want a flamethrower shaving-cream can do you?"

"I'll think I'll pass," I said and laughed. Of course, there was an undercurrent of worry too. What if John wasn't joking?

With that, I said my goodbyes. John called for an escort, and I picked up my kit and left.

* * *

Now that the work on the AEON was nearing completion, it was probably time to take Faye home, but I had one stop to make first. Laden down with a tottering pile of kit, I headed to my room, two levels below. There I made the rather foolish mistake of using the Unpack Charm in front of Faye and was promptly press-ganged into another session of magical demonstration, this time focused on Household Charms. After finally breaking free of that, I was able to resume my clearly epic journey: returning Faye to Archives. Odysseus had an easier time of it. That wasn't to say I didn't like the hyperactive fairy, but all things were best in moderation.

"Faye," I said as I walked towards the nearest level 5 lift. There was something I'd been meaning to ask. "What is an Easy Tiger?"

"British Intelligence code for extraterrestrials," she said and smiled widely. "E.T. Aliens."

Right, little green men. The idea was still faintly ridiculous. "Are, um, extraterrestrials common?"

"There are lots of them," said Faye. "Skrull, Kree, Shi'ar, Kymellian, hundreds have come to Earth and we've met thousands more."

"There are that many non-humans on Earth?"

"Oh, there is much more than just aliens!" said Faye. "There are the human offshoots, homo mermanus, inhumanus, aeternus and deviare, though the last three have a sapiens in there too. There are the Savage Land races, demons, serpent men, vampires, more. And that's just the really old ones. More recently, there are machine races, sentient computers, upraised animals and people who've become disembodied intelligences — magical, psychic, energy and everything in between."

As weird as it sounded coming from the somewhat over enthusiastic Faye, it really wasn't. My world also had plenty of non-human intelligent creatures, or Beings as we called them, a few standouts like centaurs withstanding. Of course, as the fairies of this world showed, names could have very different meanings.

"Mermanus are merpeople?" I said.

"Yep!" said Faye. "Homo mermanus. I was using the scientific name since that's what they are filed under in Archives' files. Most people call them Atlanteans. They look mostly human but have gills and live in the underwater city of Atlantis. Oh, and most are blue."

Blue... Atlantis I'd heard of, of course, if from my time in the muggle world rather than the Wizarding. It was the legendary sunken continent. In my world that was all it was, but here it seemed to be real. Another difference between the worlds? Since no one could describe the merpeople of my world as 'mostly human', they fit that category too. No. 'Oh Merlin keep it away from me would' be a more likely description.

"And vampires?" I said. Back home, vampires were rather pathetic creatures, forced to feed on blood to survive. They could be nasty if cornered but mostly liked to mope about in black evening wear.

"Incredibly dangerous creatures from pre-history," said Faye, wings drawn into her body. "They drink blood, convert others, wield mystical power and are very strong. We thought Doctor Strange wiped them out but there've been reports that they may be back." Her face was screwed up by the end, far darker than her normal sunny self. "I don't want to talk about them anymore. We have some of Doctor Sun's lab reports if you want to know more."

"No thank you," I said and she cheered up at once. "Who's Doctor Sun?"

"A very bad man," she said, face focused but no longer dark. "Doctor Sun was a Chinese scientist who developed a way to remove a human brain from its body and connect it to a bank of computers. After falling out of favour with Beijing, the process was used on him. It worked and he gained a range of psionic powers. There was an unforeseen side effect, however. To keep his brain alive, he was forced to consume a large quantity of human blood every twenty-four hours. MI6 analysts believe this factor led him to investigate vampires."

Faye called a picture onto the screen without her normal figure click. It showed a man-like robot, body the gold of jaundiced skin and chest sculpted in mockery of muscles. Metal rods ran along its limbs, like flayed ligaments and a glass bowl sat where a head would be. In the bowl floated a brain and around it twitched a nimbus of trailing red veins, like stalking tendrils. I could almost see them twitching, ready to strike and feed. It was a good thing Ron wasn't here. After what happened in the Department of Mysteries, free floating brains couldn't be a pleasant memory. He still had the scars.

"Doctor Sun," said Faye as she removed the picture, "was able to use his powers to hide from his former superiors. Soon after, he left China and came into contact with the Vampire Dracula, who he battled for many years. At some point he learnt to transfer his mind completely into a computer and did so with the Fantastic Four's Robot H.E.R.B.I.E. After being discovered, he moved to the computer systems of the Baxter Building, the Fantastic Four's base at the time. It was there he was destroyed. According to the MI6 report, he had telekinetic and mind control powers."

"Thanks, Faye," I said, and she smiled back. Of course, I was far from out of questions. Who, for example, was this Dracula person? It couldn't really be Bram Stoker's Dracula could it? That strained credibility. Somehow I doubted I would ever be out of things to ask. They were like flies. For every one I swatted down, a dozen more popped up to take its place. There always seemed to be another superhero or villain or monster, all connected together in the world's most complicated tapestry.

Before I could dive even further down that particular rabbit hole, we rounded a corner and the bank of lifts came into view. The doors of the left most were just closing.

"Hold the lift," I said and dashed forward. The doors stopped, just shy of flush and I slinked through.

"Thanks," I said and smiled at the other man in the lift. He was older than most people I'd met, perhaps even Alistaire Stuart's senior. He looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties, had grey hair and wore an embroidered waistcoat over a dark green dress shirt, which did nothing to take off the years. "Harry Potter. New field agent."

The man looked me up and down, evaluation in his eyes. He extended his hand. "Charles Stanley," he said. "Head of Archives."

I shook back, squeezing down.

"I thought Robin was Head of Archives?"

His hand froze beneath mine, muscles hard, but only for a split second. That moment passed and he continued as if nothing had happened. "We share the position," he said, lips maybe a touch white. "It was decided we both had valuable contributions to make."

Right. Touchy subject. I wasn't the world's most sensitive guy but even I could take a hint.

"I'm sure you both do your part," I said and forced a smile.

"Yes," he said, frowning, "but some people's parts may be dangerous. Humans should treat magic — all knowledge — with care and respect, like we've been doing for centuries. In books it can be contained and controlled. This has been proven by generations of researchers, but Mr Cunnings' pointless drive to modernise puts everything in danger."

I was forcibly reminded of the stark division which was such of feature of Archives. On the left, rows of shelves, filled with leather-bound books. On the right, computers, televisions and technological devices the purpose of which I could only guess at. It was now clear who the driving force behind each was.

"Take Robin's little fairy, for example," said Stanley, clearly not done. "Now I know we could do a lot worse — a rampaging demon for example — but it would give away government secrets for a wink and a smile."

There was a buzzing from my hand as Faye's PDA started to vibrate. I didn't even know it could do that. Come to that, I still wasn't sure it was meant to.

Since Faye was clearly only moments away from exploding, I put on my best smile and said, "I'm sure that's not true."

"Now Mr Potter," said Stanley. "You're new here. I've spoken with the fairy many times and I can assure you that—"

I held up a hand. "Mr Stanley, while you might have spoken to Faye, I've spent the last few hours with her and I can assure you, she wouldn't give away secrets for, how did you put it, a 'wink and a smile'. It would take at least a hug. Isn't that right Faye?" I turned the PDA so Stanley could see it.

"That's right!" said Faye, wings buzzing so fast they were a blur. "And you're a big—" Something clicked on her face, and she turned, the two-dimensional equivalent of looking back at me. "Hey wait a minute!"

"Don't worry Faye," I said and patted the PDA, a rather stupid gesture if you stopped to think about it but Faye didn't seem to mind. "I was just joking. I know you wouldn't give out government secrets to just anyone."

In truth, I was far less certain. She'd given me briefings on my fellow field agents, offered MI6 files on famous superheroes and fed me information about a Black section of the base, somewhere I was not meant to go under any circumstances. While I didn't mind as long as the information was flowing towards me, it could get nasty if the transfer became a two-way street. There was plenty I didn't want people to know, not my enemies, MI6 or even the woman who did the tea. I'd need to be extra careful in the future. Faye could be watching or listening from anywhere and near anything.

Stanley opened his mouth to reply but stopped when the lift doors chimed and opened. He gave me a stiff nod and hurried out. I took a few seconds longer but followed after.

* * *

Archives was the same as I'd last seen it, left and right halves diametrically opposed. Robin was at the far end, connecting a mess of wires up to a large computer. The supercomputer AEON, unless my memory was even worse than I thought. The multitude of lights that covered its front blinked in unison, and that must have been good because Robin stood and stretched.

"Don't you have minions for this sort of thing?" I said, walking up.

He jumped at the sound of my voice, then turned, half looking over his shoulder. "Ah, Harry. It's you," he said and shook his head. "Normally I would but not with AEON. It's the Kree core. The last time I let them try, they took down half the network for a week. It needs a special touch."

Given the mess of wires connecting AEON to the wall, I could believe it. They came in every colour and shape imaginable, short red ones, long loopy green ones, hard grey things like miniature railway tracks and matched sets of blinking boxes. And that was to say nothing of the small screen Robin had open on the side of the beast. It contained a mass of confusing text I couldn't even begin to parse, as complicated as any piece of spell theory.

"I can see," I said and held up Faye's PDA. "I'm just bringing Faye home."

He smiled. "Ever the gentleman I see. Faye, how was your day?"

"It was great!" she said. "Harry showed me magic and talked to me and showed me the cafeteria and..." I tuned her out as she continued to ramble on.

After almost a minute of jumbled, temporally disjointed praise, even Robin looked lost. He held up both hands and said, "So you had a good time then?"

"Yep!" said Faye, all wide smiles.

"Good," said Robin. "Now, Harry. Could you plug her back in, please? The batteries on the PDA must be near depleted, and I'm almost done with AEON." He picked up and tossed a small back thing to me, and I caught it out of the air. Six years of Quidditch was worth something after all. "Just plug the charger into a wall socket."

While I did that, Robin continued tinkering with the supercomputer.

"I heard the computer didn't work," I said, just as I found the power slot on the side of the PDA. Faye gave me a thumbs up, smile wide.

"Yes," said Robin, bent over the small screen. "It's a pity, but the encryption is just too good."

"You know that after just a few hours?"

Robin sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Breaking complex encryption is really very difficult, even with alien super technology. The defences are often just as advanced, you see. With the kind of advanced encryption in use here, we either break it in hours or not at all. Even with all the computational power available at Mordred, a brute force attack would take more time than exists in the universe. My hope was that AEON would be just plain, to put it in simple terms, smart enough to out think the encryption. That proved not to be the case."

I nodded my head, pretending that made any sense at all.

"Almost done," he said. "Faye, give me thirty seconds, then you can hop back into the network."

"Will do," she said.

A little over a minute later, Robin said, "And done. All up and running. Tests passed." He dusted off his hands, probably a symbolic gesture but it did look pretty dirty down where the wires met the wall.

"You're finished with your reprogramming or whatever?" I said. "Good to go?"

"Not reprogramming," said Robin. "It takes days to write even simple software from scratch. Anything more complex than 'Hello World' needs extensive planning and testing. I was just reinstalling our custom software and reconfiguring some network permissions."

I fell back on my normal standby of nodding and pretending the people around me weren't speaking gibberish. Maybe someday they'd start explaining things properly and maybe someday I'd be able to go a year without something 'interesting' happening. I wasn't holding my breath on either count.

Instead I turned to Faye. "You glad to be going home?" She, at least, spoke mostly in plain English.

"Yep!" she said, beaming widely. "This PDA is tiny. I like to stretch. AEON is so big. I can stretch and stretch and stretch and never have to stop."

She nodded and Robin said, "Off you go then."

Faye scrunched shut her eyes and bobbed her head. Nothing happened.

"Nothing happened!" she said, eyes opened wide, wings fluttering.

"Nothing?" said Robin. Lines creased his face.

"Nothing!" said Faye.

"You can't get back on the network?" I said. Maybe I was getting the hang of this computer stuff after all?

"No!" Faye's wings wavered and she wrung her tiny cartoon hands. Again she closed her eyes and her face locked in a mask of concentration. "Something's wrong! I can't go back." Her eyes opened wide, crystal blue and shining with fear. "The Wi-Fi's locked down! None of my passwords are working!"

"Don't panic Faye," said Robin in a calm voice, hands raised, palms out. "I'm sure I just made a mistake when I put it back on the network. You know how temperamental these supercomputers can be."

He walked back over to AEON and began poking at the small screen on the side. Lights pulsed in the glass orb and diodes flickered in a complex pattern but nothing else. Faye remained as distraught as ever.

"There's something..." said Robin, talking to himself. "Almost..." His eyes opened wide and the orb atop AEON flashed to full life. A mass of red lines swarmed within it, contorting, searching, hunting. "Harry! Shut down Faye's Wi-Fi!"

That was a tone of voice I knew well. It meant do now and think later. I dove for the PDA and flicked the switch Robin had shown me hours before.

Red lights, almost blinding in their intensity, glared out from AEON and Robin staggered back, hands raised to shield his face. Even I hissed and took a half step away, but still had the presence of mind to draw my wand.

"Impossible," he said, voice almost hushed.

"What?" I said.

"Daddy," said Faye, "what's happening!"

"No," said Robin, eyes darting. "I— I need to—" He dashed for a large wall mounted switch and yanked it down.

For a single blinding instant, the red light inside AEON shone like a second sun; then it flickered out. So did every other computer in the room, along with all the TVs and other devices. It was the silence which struck me most, a room wide susurrus.

"What's happening?" I said again and took a step towards Robin.

The ceiling lights flickered, then dimmed, going from white to a dull yellow. A spark rekindled inside AEON, a red glow like one of Voldemort's eyes. The diodes re-lit too, a scattering of flashing stars like droplets of blood. The other computers stayed deathly quiet.

"This is impossible," said Robin. His left hand came up, grabbing his face. "This can't be happening."

"What is happening?" I said again and grabbed him by the shoulders, my voice as calm as I could make it. First rule of leadership: if you were calm, so was everyone else.

"I just," he said. "I just shut down the power to all the computers but they're still on! It's a hard switch, no software involved!"

The red glow inside AEON grew brighter and the lights over our heads dimmed further. The computer cast red shadows along the floor, blood spilled and left to stain.

"Daddy!" said Faye again, her hands tiny fists, wings buzzing. "Harry!"

"Why?" I said, staring right into his eyes. "What's causing it?"

"Something," said Robin and took a breath. "Something's in AEON which shouldn't be there. It's getting loose."

Tendrils whipped out from AEON's glowing core, lapping against the outer edge of the orb, an obscene kiss. Directly above the lights flared, then exploded, shattered glass raining down. I grabbed Robin and tugged him backwards. Faye screamed from her PDA and Robin seemed almost numb, a heavy weight I needed to force to move. On either side of AEON, a half-dozen computers burst to life, speakers blaring static and screens showing a chaotic mess of colours.

"There was, is, something on AEON," said Robin. "That should be impossible. We formatted it, shut down the quantum core. The quantum states collapsed! Do you know what that means? Nothing could still be on it."

"Can't you stop it?" I said, just as another light exploded further down the room. More computers returned to life. Robin jumped and I turned, putting my back to the explosion. Other people were boiling in and emerging from deeper in the library, confused looking office types in suits.

"I don't know," said Robin, voice harsh. "It's not a computer program. It can't be. It's like Faye or— Or— I don't know."

Like Faye? Faye could spy through cameras and knew far more than she should but seemed fundamentally good natured. What could she do if she wasn't? "Faye," I said, turning. "What could you do if you really wanted? How much damage?"

One of the office suit types dashed up to us. "Mr Cunnings!" he said. "Mr Cunnings! What's going on?" I ignored him; so did everyone else.

"But I'd never do something bad like that!" said Faye, eyes darting from place to place.

"But if you really wanted to?" I said.

"But I wouldn't!" said Faye, face terrified. It was clear she wasn't going to answer, or perhaps couldn't.

"How do we stop it?" I said, turning back to Robin. "Whatever _it_ is."

"Mr Cunning!" shrieked the office suit type.

Another light exploded and the office suit let out a terrified shriek. The red eye of AEON glowed even brighter, a burning cinder surrounded by a hunting swarm of red lines.

"I don't know," said Robin and his hand came up, grabbing my shoulder. "It's already bypass the hard cut off. There is no power!"

"Cunnings!" shouted a new voice. It was Charles Stanley, the other head of Archives. He strode out from among the rows of bookshelves, hands thrust into his waistcoat's pockets. "What the blue blazes is going on?"

"There's something loose in the network," I said. "We can't turn it off."

Stanley's eyes went straight to Faye but she was too agitated to notice.

"Everyone out," he said. "Evacuate the floor."

"I—" said Robin.

"Out!" said Stanley and grabbed the office suit type by the shoulders. "Standard evacuation. We've trained for this. Everyone up to Operations."

"Sir," said the office suit. He bobbed his head and ran for the exit. The other workers did likewise, a solid tide heading for the lifts and stairs.

"You pulled the hard cut-off," said Stanley. It wasn't a question. We could all see the large switch was pulled down, partially obscuring the word 'off'. Another light exploded, sending diamond shards cascading down. Everyone jumped.

"It didn't work," said Robin and shook his hands. "AEON came right back and—" More lights exploded and more computers returned to life, humming fans and flickering screens. Electronic static filled the room, like the hiss of a thousand snakes. Somewhere deep inside it, though, was the beat of insane laughter. Somehow I doubted it was my Parselmouth abilities.

"The computers still need power right?" I said, wand tracking along the line of electronics. The hard cut off might not work but that was not the only thing we could do.

"Of course," said Stanley.

At the very same time Robin said, "I don't know!"

That was enough for me. "Accio Cables!" I said and flicked out my wand. My Summoning Charm yanked at the cables but something else pulled back, just as strong. Nothing moved; I'd seen this spell pull iron spikes from a stone wall but the wires stopped me. We'd see about that. Slowly, fighting for every inch, I dragged back my arm, making the spell work by main-force. My arm shook, muscles straining, and sparks flew from some of the computers but AEON was not without its own power. It pulsed, red light burning bright, and again I was halted.

Both heads of Archives looked at me. It wasn't working. Of course it wasn't. That would've been far too simple. I dropped the spell.

"We need to stop this thing?" I said, a frown on my face.

They nodded.

"Then sorry about this: Confringo!" I whipped my wand in a tight circle and jabbed right through the centre. The air tore apart and the Blasting Curse exploded forward, right at AEON's glass head. It hit and splashed off the glass like it wasn't one of the hardest hitting pieces of magic known to wizardkind.

AEON pulsed red and—

The air warped, twisted and shot forward, a wave of force. It slammed into me and I went crashing back. I hit the floor, rolled and came to a stop, every bruise on my already injured body screaming with pain. There was blood on my lips, thick and coppery.

"Run," I said as I pushed myself up. "I'll hold it off."

Another light exploded and space warped. This time I saw it coming and threw myself to the left. Behind me a bookcase burst apart, pages flying in all directions even as the shelves crashed backwards.

With AEON's attention on me, Stanley grabbed the still shocked Robin and dragged him towards the doors. Since they were not yet clear, I staggered forward and slashed my wand through the air. Three Disarming Charms shot towards AEON, a tight bracket, and I put a little spin on them, picturing wires as weapons. There was no time to stop, though; another wave of force was already ripping towards me.

I dodged and struck back, an Explosive Banisher aimed at the floor beneath AEON and a Detonating Curse at the ceiling. They hit, waves of energy breaking loose in thunderous cracks. Plaster dust and vaporised carpet rained down and thundered up respectively. It was a white sheet, filling everything, and then it all shot right towards me as if grabbed up by some great invisible hand.

An alarm blared somewhere in the background, like the fire bell from my muggle primary school, but I had no mind for such things.

"Protego!" I screamed and forced my shield into a wedge. That took a bit of mental effort, far from the spell's preferred baseline, but I fought through. The shield spun into existence, an angled cone of blue energy, sharp at the tip, flared behind. The force wave struck and broke as if before prow of a ship but it still hit me hard. I staggered back, a grunt escaping my lips, but kept my wand up and shield raised.

The last few ceiling lights exploded in pyrotechnic fire, a transient star field of falling glass highlighted by burning sparks of still brighter things. That left only two sources of illumination: the blue of my shield and the arcing crimson of AEON. Where they met violet light warred and spilled out, otherworldly blood.

The force wave petered out and I dropped my shield, fighting through the last dregs as wind whipped my clothes. "Expulso!" I said, and jabbed my wand forward, twisting my wrist at the same time. A wave of fiery force erupted out, heading right for AEON. It washed off the invisible barrier.

AEON retaliated with a shortened force blast, forcing me to the left, then another, while I was still off balance. I staggered back, my non-verbal Shielding Charm only deflecting part of the force. A third hit me head on, but by then I was ready. Feet set and shield focused, I stood firm. Destroyed papers and shattered wood whipped about but I was in the eye of the storm.

The heat haze intensified in front of AEON, lensed space magnifying its burning eye, and a tremendous blast slammed into me. All around, the room's computers thundered their impending victory. Despite all my magic, I went back, tripping, stumbling, but kept my shield up. It was the only thing keeping me alive.

A still intact bookcase tapped against my back, the shelves hard, and I threw myself to the side. The force blast exploded into the books, tearing loose a typhoon of paper and cracking oak, but I hit the ground and cradled my head. The storm raged around me, archaic tongues, hand sketched diagrams for death rays and still other, stranger things but that didn't matter.

On the other side of the room, the red eye of AEON smouldered and a new hum rose as all the fans sped up. Light flickered on a multitude of screens, short bursts of static and fractal patterns which fell away to internal infinities. The air shimmered, a heat haze hanging before every screen, not just AEON's. Something big was happening. Something bad. That didn't sound like something I should just let happen.

"Accio table!" I said and slashed my wand through the air. One of the large oak tables flew towards me, a huge mass of wood, tumbling as it flew. Just like the day before, I stopped it with a second spell, leaving it suspended in mid-air, a halted titan full of potential energy. The next part would be hardest of all.

"Depulso!" I screamed and put all my will behind the spell, forcing the simple banisher to be as powerful as possible. The mental strain hit me like a blow but I did it all the same. It was a good thing I was already on the ground. Had I been standing, my legs would surely have given out.

The table hurtled forward through the air, heading right from AEON, and I held the shape of the spell with my entire mind. It was hard; I was pushing the spell far beyond what it was meant to do and that put all the pressure right on me. Two of the legs exploded into shrapnel as my will faltered a fraction but that didn't matter. The bulk of the table kept moving forward and AEON would need to try very hard to stop it. That was exactly what it did.

A shimmer formed in the air and caught the table, a force equal and opposite to my own.

"Arg!" I screamed through clenched shut teeth. My jaw was as tight as any vice, and the muscles of my face were white. The spell wavered, almost failing, but I kept it going by the mental equivalent of fingernails. It felt like my brain was ready to dribble out my ears. I needed a proper subordinate incantation, one designed to focus the banisher for power. Who needed paltry things like control or usability? I grunted again as I lost a few inches of ground, arm shaking and wand vibrating in my clenched fingers. Merlin, I needed a whole new banisher, one designed to do exactly this.

I screamed, a raw primal sound from the depths of my soul, and the table stopped retreating. It was hard, very very hard. I was back holding the Patronus Charm against the Dementors in my third year. No, it was Voldemort and I, wands locked in my fourth. No, it was the Hag Folkmoot, my Shielding Charm straining from a bombardment of Death Eater curses while the Hags performed their primitive earth magic ritual. Again I screamed and the table started gaining ground. With one final effort, I won the contest. With only the red glow to give light, the table smashed into AEON, knocking the computer back into the wall and cracking the glass dome. The red light died in an instant and bursts of angry lightning cracked around it. The room's other computers flickered too but then came back all the stronger, their screens and speakers pulsing with rage. At first the sound was just clawing and electronic but it soon resolved into an all too human scream.

I gasped for breath and let my head fall to the ground, too mind-weary to keep it raised anymore. Shattered wood bit into my face and there was nothing I could do about it. Casting individual spells all day, that was easy, but holding one highly intent warped spell? That took a mental hit.

Once more space twisted in front of the assembled mass of computers and a wave of force thundered out, converging just where I lay. It picked up shattered wood and ripped paper and it was almost all I could do to raise my wand. "Protego!"

Blue light flickered and flared, resolving into a weak Shielding Charm. The force wave struck but I endured, safe inside my bulwark. Losing AEON had clearly cost the what-ever-it-was; the blast lacked the power of those before, and it petered out after only a few seconds.

Still panting, I rose to my feet and lifted my wand, arm shaking. "Protego!" The shield appeared, hanging in the air, and I did it again and again. Within seconds, three shields hung unsupported, protecting my passage to the door. I ran for it, feet feeling like lead.

Destroyed paper and shattered glass shifted under my feet, crunching and moving. The computers attacked with a huge force blast, large enough to warp light and twist the far side of the room like a funhouse mirror. My first shield exploded, ribbons of blue energy flying in all directions, but I was already behind the second.

"Harry!" screamed Faye and something clutched at my chest. Faye! She was still in the PDA.

"Accio PDA!" I said, waving my wand, not slowing at all. The computers shattered my second shield with a barrage of fist sized strikes, each blow sending waves crashing through the shield before it failed entirely. That was for the best. It meant Faye had a path to me.

The PDA flickered through the air, almost too small to see, but I snatched it up, long honed instincts put to good use. One of the small force blasts slammed into my side, a full force punch, and I went wide, arms wheeling to keep my feet. I managed — just — and dashed for the cover of my third and final shield. I made it and then the doors were just ahead, wooden, closed but not barred. They swung wide to a silent banisher and I barrelled through. Blood pounded in my ears and my breathing was ragged, half from the danger, half from the pain and half from the banisher still dragging me down. My head felt too small and my brain too big. That probably explained were the extra half came from.

"Faye," I said, the name little more than a breath. "You okay?"

"Don't worry!" she said and gave me a thumbs up. "I'm check bit protected." At least someone was still chipper.

From within the room, the scream grew louder, a human voice intercut with electronic static. A dull thud rushed out and a rumble passed through the floor, shaking my feet. The doors vibrated on their hinges.

I drew myself together. Now was not the time to rest.

The doors rippled as I cast my first spell, a basic wood to metal transfiguration. The oak planks morphed, dark brown wood giving way to metallic silver. When it was almost done, I nudged the spell, a minor act of will. The two doors merged together, now one slab, and the whole thing grew outwards. It locked tight in the frame. Transfiguration outside the classroom had never been my best skill — I was no Dumbledore — but the slab wouldn't be coming down to anything less than a battering ram.

Even as I was mentally congratulating myself, the slab boomed like a struck gong and the centre distorted, bending out in a cry of twisting metal. The computers were not yet done. I frowned. If they weren't finished, neither was I.

With a few swishes of my wand, I made the slab Unbreakable. How much that would do against seemingly magical force blasts, I had no idea, but it couldn't hurt and there was more to come.

"Colloportus!" I said and wrapped hard with my wand, the resulting sound slightly tinny like all things bewitched to be Unbreakable. The slab shimmered with half seen light and thunked as if hit by a mass of especially gooey mud. The 'door' was now locked tight.

One last thing. It was time for some big impressive magic. In other words, magic which could easily get me killed.

I raised my wand and pictured what I wanted in my mind: a shield sweeping around the whole library room, covering every inch of wall and blocking all the doors. "Protego," I said, feeling my wand tremble in my hand, "Totalum!"

The spell whooshed out, an almost solid wave of white-blue energy, and it crackled against the spells already in place. Miniature bolts of lightning leaped towards me but I jumped back, heart pounding and violet afterimages staining my eyes. That was a pretty benign reaction, all told, especially considering I'd just done what all the defensive enchantment books said you should never do. Walk a circle, yes; use a physical guide, yes; use a pre-existing spell, yes; attempt to combine an intent warped spell with others, no and never. About the only good thing Theodore Warder would have to say, at least I'd not tried to combine them with the Spell Joining Charm.

From inside Archives came a renewed hum, the sound of working machinery and thundering fans. The slab boomed again as the strongest assault yet slammed against it. Ripples cascaded over the Shielding Charm, starting at the door and spreading outwards along the walls. They were shallow, though, and stayed that way. No constructive interference built up and neither did its destructive twin. The slab didn't explode out of the wall either.

I let out a breath, mostly from relief, and took a few steps back and to the side. After shaking my head to move a few last things back into place, I looked down at Faye.

"Time to make our exit," I said and adjusted my glasses.

For once Faye only nodded.


	4. Chapter 4

When I got to the stairwell, I was not alone. People swarmed upwards. Feet banged against the ground and guts heaved, grown large from one-too-many lift journeys. I joined the rush.

The thong was thick but moved with an almost solid purpose, and only a few minutes later it bore me through the final set of doors into Operations. People packed it too, but they were being kept in check by a line of men with clipboards. They scribbled madly, taking names, checking them off and ushering people through. Helping them in this task was my old friends the RAF soldiers, guns held ready if not quite pointed at anyone.

"Harry, Harry," said a man from near the back of the crowd. It was Robin, face taught and pale. "Stand aside. Stand aside." He forced his way through and burst out. "You got out okay? I thought... When you didn't come up we thought the worst."

Even as important as Robin was, there was no way people were going to flow around us. A hurrying lady in a skirt suit jostled my shoulder and almost sent me to the ground. She had some serious heft to her and I was none to steady on my feet to start with. Since standing still was clearly not an option, Robin grabbed my arm and dragged me backwards, passed the men taking names, and into the open corridor beyond.

"Daddy!" said Faye, arms wide inside the tiny screen.

"Faye," said Robin and wiped a hand over his face. "Thank God." He took the PDA and turned back to me. "Harry, what's going on?"

"Things are crazy down there," I said. "AEON, or the thing in it, started throwing banishers everywhere. I don't know. Force blasts or something. It blew up a large part of the library before I got away. I sealed the room but I don't know if that will hold it."

Robin nodded his head and grabbed my arm. "This way. There's a briefing about what's going on. They'll want to know what you saw." He forced his way back through the crowd, dragging me with him.

* * *

The sign on the door said Briefing Room A and it deserved the 'A'. The room was big. Stepped rings of chairs led down to a central platform, similar to what I always thought a Roman theatre must look like. It could've held a hundred people with room to spare. Today, though, it held far fewer than that: maybe a dozen.

My fellow 'superhuman' field agents were there **—** Kailen, Malon, Trinidad/Night Raven and Blackhole. So too was Doctor Hartwell, Charles Stanley, John Taylor and the big man himself Alistaire Stuart, along with a small host of people I didn't recognise, all dressed in expensive suits or crisp uniforms.

Robin dragged me down the central staircase, towards the assemblage of august figures.

"Approximately ten minutes ago," said Alistaire as I approached, "an unknown hostile entity infected Archives' supercomputer AEON. We believe the infection to have originated from Artefact 1222, which AEON had interfaced with. For those who do not yet know, 1222 is a hard drive we believe belonged to the Fantastic Four. While the infection seems to have been initially focused on that single computer, it appears to have spread. Mr Cunnings reports that other Archives' computers were acting in non-standard manors when he evacuated. Additionally, some force has locked us out of the network, facility wide. I have ordered all computers in areas still under our control to be shut down, but computers running in evacuated areas are presenting a problem. Without access to the network we can't send remote shutdown commands.

"While infected, AEON demonstrated telekinetic power. We don't know if it can manifest these powers in other locations. Now, I—"

"Mr Stuart!" said Robin, still tugging me. It was getting annoying. "Alistaire! Harry. I mean Agent Potter. He's here."

Everyone turned to look. Many of the eyes contained suspicion, some relief.

"Harry," said Lorance Hartwell and pushed his glasses up his nose with two fingers. "We thought the worst."

From the looks on some of the assembled faces, the worse was that I was behind everything, AEON, the lock down and quite possibly the master criminal suspected of stealing the sandwiches from the break room fridge. It didn't bother me too much. This was par for the course for my life.

"I managed to get away," I said.

"Really," said Lorance. "Mr Cunnings said it threw you clear across the room."

I nodded. "It could throw force blasts. None of my spells could hurt it but my Shielding Charm could just about protect me. In the end, I threw a table at it. That turned AEON off but the other computers were almost as strong."

"You threw a table," said Kailen, raising one thin eyebrow. "My dear Harry Potter, you are much stronger than you look." He smiled, a double row of too sharp teeth.

"I used magic," I said. Though I couldn't be sure, the utterly blank look on Kailen's vulpine face made me think he was being facetious.

"I'm sure we are all glad Mr Potter has returned to us safely," said Alistaire from his place at the table, hands steepled. "But there is much more to this meeting than that. Blackhole, if you could debrief Agent Potter while we continue planning our response?"

She nodded, rose and motioned off to one side. While I briefed her on what had happened — the start of the fight, the other computers returning to life, AEON's defeat and my retreat — the meeting continued. Given the coughs Blackhole would periodically send my way, my attention was probably more focused on them than her.

"Is the evacuation nearing completion?" said one man, a solidly built salt and pepper type.

"It's continuing," said another; he at least had a name badge: M. Barding. "But we should be nearly finished. We've trained for this before. There's a skeleton staff in Prisoner Containment but everyone else will be in Operations or above ground within the next ten minutes."

"And the corruption hasn't interfered?"

"Not as far as we can tell. It seems mostly focused on Archives, apart from shutting down the network."

"That's not quite right," said John Taylor and ran a hand along his stubble covered chin. "When I was evacuating... The security cameras. I don't know if anyone else noticed but they were not acting normally. They have a set search pattern and weren't following it."

Yeah... That wasn't worrying at all. I cast a glance around the room, searching the shadowed roof for sleek black shapes. I was far from the only one.

"Maybe someone was accessing them," said Stanley, shooting a look at the still standing Robin.

"Faye was locked down at the time," said Robin, just a hair to quick and forceful to appear a simple correction. "It has to be the invader, whoever or whatever it is."

"It's not impossible someone else was accessing them," said John, though he clearly didn't believe it. "Security keeping track of the evacuation? The network might not have been completely locked down at that point."

"Malon," said Alistaire and pointed to three places around the room. The lines on his face seemed especially deep right then.

She scowled but stood and stabbed out with her palm, three quick jabs. Bolts of green energy, not quite the right colour to be Killing Curses, shot up to the ceiling and exploded. Thunder boomed in the room, crashed off the walls and bounced right back. It echoed in my ears and left them ringing. Bits of broken electronics and ceiling tile rained down.

"I hate to intrude," said Lorance, rubbing somewhat theatrically at his ears, "but what about the people still in Prisoner Containment? While I am no expert, some of our, um, guests do require extensive and specialised holding facilities."

"For the time being they will remain where they are," said Alistaire, voice emotionless. "There are plans in place to be used in the event of a total evacuation, but Prisoner Containment is second only to the Vault in terms of security. Its computers are off network and seem to be still working, according to the hard-line telephones."

That gave me pause and Blackhole coughed, trying to draw my attention back to my debriefing, but my mind was well and truly set on other things. Where the 'plans' Alistaire spoke of really evacuation plans or did they involve not so artistic combinations of bullets and brains? It wasn't a pleasant thought but I knew what eyes like Alistaire Stuart's could mean.

"We need to destroy all the computers," said Trinidad, voice level and friendly from behind his faceless gold mask, "and anything they might have infected. It's better to be safe than let this contagion return."

"We can't do that!" said John, and half rose from his chair. A glance from Alistaire sent him back down. "You're talking about years of research and millions of pounds in equipment. Some of it simply can't be replaced. Yes, we have off site backups but, even so, the loss would be immense. And all of this is completely premature. We don't know anything about this infection yet."

"A full power shut down, then," said Trinidad, black suit shifting as he shrugged. "If we turn everything off, we can analyse it at our leisure, but we must stop the spread now. The longer we dally the harder our task becomes."

"We tried that already," said Robin, fingers white around Faye's PDA.

It was around then that I finished telling my story and Blackhole nodded, long angular face flat with thought. After a few seconds she turned towards the table and said, "I know what's going on, Stuart."

"Do tell," said Alistaire, giving nothing away. I'd half expected him to bite her head off for the forthright tone.

"The Archives' hard cut off stops the power to the computers, correct?"

Both Robin and John nodded.

"But it does not stop all power," she continued, "merely the circuit the computers draw off. The lights, for example, stayed on."

Another set of nods.

"Potter said the lights first dimmed and then exploded. It's drawing on that power, even if it's not connected to it."

That... That made a lot of sense and I wasn't the only one who thought so. "Some kind of electrokinesis," said a slightly nerdy looking man in a white lab coat, face bright. "Of course! And if we shut of all the power, there would be nothing to draw upon! Its range can't be unlimited. If it was, it would never have needed to draw upon the lights."

The nerdy man wasn't the only one who looked pleased. The salt and pepper type was nodding his head, as was M. Barding and most of the rest of the table. John, though, was frowning. "There are still problems," he said.

Everyone turned to look at him.

"There are three issues that I can see," said John. "First, our key security systems work on a power-to-open model. That means, all secure doors and systems will be locked and stay locked. Second, will be life support. This base is deep underground and has poor air circulation. We artificially move and replenish air to keep it fresh and maintain security. Without power this system will be shut down. Third is EPOCH."

That brought a collection of frowns. It also left me confused. "EPOCH?" I said.

"Mordred has three supercomputers, Harry," said John and wrote something on a lined notepad. When he held it up, it had three names: 'JUBILEE', 'AEON', and 'EPOCH'. "JUBILEE is based upon Skrull technology and is located in Planning and Operations, not far from here in fact. It has been shut down successfully, correct?"

Alistaire nodded. "Yes. I ordered a manual shut down after disconnecting it from the network."

"Good," said John. "Next we have AEON, which is based upon Kree technology and belongs to Archives. You disabled that one. EPOCH is the final supercomputer. It is based upon the recovered remains of a Kymellian smart core, is located in Research and Development and—" He took a breath. "Has an on-site fusion reactor."

I could see why they were frowning now. A nuclear bomb was not something I wanted beneath my feet.

"You mean it's still running," said the salt and pepper type. He slammed a fist into the table but quickly withdrew it when Alistaire gave him a look, the merest flicker of a disapproving gaze. "Why the hell did we evacuate while leaving it running? It's a bloody hair trigger nuke."

"We didn't know there was a computer problem when we evacuated," said John. "And it's not a 'nuke'." The word clearly left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. "Fusion reactors are not bombs. They can't melt down or go critical. Fusion is hard enough to sustain at the best of times. It's near impossible for it to explode, and completely impossible for it to do so accidentally. Any reaction intense enough to damage the containment area would also breach the conditions needed to sustain fusion. The worst that could happen is a release of plasma and that would be contained by the blast doors."

Despite my general view that John knew what he was talking about, that explanation did nothing to reassure me. It was still a nuclear bomb as far as I was concerned. Most people not wearing white lab coats seemed to agree with me.

"The sorcerous wards might keep it out," said Lorance, though he looked pensive. "AEON's were down when it was infected and the normal computers have lesser protections. They're meant to stop remote assaults and primarily mystical ones at that. If this infection is technological, biological or technopathic in nature... I can't speak to what the wards will do. It's also already inside the protections. That won't help either."

Well, that was encouraging.

"There is a way to shut it down, I assume?" said Alistaire. His eyes glinted, chips of ice. In every way but the technical, it wasn't a question. It was a statement of how the universe would be.

"Three, in fact," said John, chin held high. "A remote command over the network, a hardwired off switch accessible from ground level and a local version of the same. The last two both work by breaking the links between the Kymellian smart core and the reactor. Without the core to manage it, the reactor will stop on its own."

"With the network locked we will need to use the remote hard switch," said Alistaire and raised a hand.

His secretary, the platinum haired Alice Blackmore, appeared out the shadows and leant down. "Sir?"

Alistaire gave the orders and she hurried away. That done, he turned his attention back to the table. "We should know soon enough."

A thought sparked at the back of my brain and I said, "Sir, there's something else. The, um, infection's force blasts were at their strongest when it was using AEON. They were much weaker when it just had the normal computers."

Blackhole scowled at me, her dark features giving easily to the expression. That particular nugget of information hadn't been in my report but I'd only just made the connection.

"There have been technopaths whose powers were amplified by being in a powerful computer," said a woman in a green military dress uniform. Markbanks her name tag said.

"Sage," muttered M. Barding. Alistaire's expression hardened a fraction and I made a mental note to find out who 'Sage' was.

"I'm sure I've read something," said Lorance and began patting his pockets, as if he might be carrying that exact book around with him. "What was it now? Ah, yes, reports of bio-occult conditioning producing similar results." After a few seconds he stopped searching his pockets, looking slightly sheepish.

"If this is true," said Alistaire, looking at me and ignoring the byplay, "disabling EPOCH becomes even more of a priority."

Alice Blackmore appeared and walked to the table. She lent down and whispered something in Alistaire's ear. After a few seconds he nodded. "The remote cut off has failed. We will need to switch it off at the source."

* * *

The plan, as it turned out, was simple. Turn off all power, sneak down to Research and Development and turn EPOCH off, using force if necessary. According to Patricia Coatbridge, a woman in her late fifties and Mordred's chief medical officer, air was less of a problem than we thought. With the lower levels near deserted, only the strike team would need to breathe. The people crammed into Planning and Operations could evacuate upwards at their leisure and Prisoner Containment, much like the Vault, was on a separate sealed system. Of course there were problems.

"I need to come."

The other superpowered field agents looked at me. They all clearly thought this was a bad idea.

"You're not trained, Potter," said Blackhole. "You're not use to working with us."

"I sealed the doors to Archives," I said, fingers white around my wand. "A Shielding Charm surrounds the whole room. You can't get in without me."

The plan called for us to drop through Archives' floor using one of Blackhole's portals and straight into EPOCH's control room. This would allow us to bypass any defences the infection had set up using the fusion reactor as power. Unfortunately from their point of view and fortunately from mine, that point was in the middle of Archives' main library, the very room I'd surrounded with a layer of shielding magic. Maybe I really did have a saving and/or protecting people thing? An excuse to stay out of danger was something most people wanted, wasn't it?

"It's your decision," said Alistaire to Blackhole. "You're team leader."

Blackhole pursed her lips and frowned. After a few seconds she said, "Fine. But you stay back and out of the way."

I smiled and nodded at that. She clearly didn't know me very well. No matter where I stood, trouble would find me.

Alistaire said we needed ten minutes to finish evacuating non-essential personnel so we waited. Trinidad/Night Raven took out a pair of sleek silver pistols and began checking them over. I was with Faye; guns made me nervous. Kailen draped himself over a chair, long legs over one armrest, back against the other. His oversized sword lay across his body. Malon Reeves sat corpse-straight in hers, only her fingers moving, Cat's Cradle without the string. Last of all, Blackhole was talking quietly to Alistaire, heads down and together.

When the time came, we all got up and Blackhole began passing out ear pieces and microphones. It was a long time since I'd seen anything of the sort. The Wizarding World had its own solutions to such problems but it probably wasn't the best time to exalt their virtues. "Put this in and keep quiet," she told me. "Clip the body to your belt, microphone to your collar and earpiece in your ear. To transmit, push down on the button on the belt unit. Don't use it unless you have to. Remember, you're there to take down what you did and stay out the way. Nothing more."

I nodded and began wiring myself up.

"Ten seconds," said Alistaire, just after I'd finished. He looked up from his watch. "Torches ready."

The tension grew, each passing second ratcheting it up another notch. The last second ticked away.

The world went black as the lights flickered out.

Once again it was the silence which struck me most. A thousand tiny background noises were simply gone and it was disquieting in a way I couldn't quite identify. The air began to feel hot and muggy, each breath heavy. It was my imagination, of course, but that didn't make it any less real. I could almost feel silk flush against my face.

From around the room came clicking sounds as torches were switched on, casting lines of light. Even with dozens of high-powered torches, dark shadows steeped the room, long and deep. The nested rings of seats were little more than grey shapes. If the room had reminded me of a theatre before, it was now an Amphitheatre, maybe even the Colosseum. Hopefully there would be no lions.

"We'll be running the command centre from here," said Alistaire. "Batteries for radios and lights should last several hours and we have access to hard-copy maps and technical data if you need it."

Blackhole nodded and we set off.

* * *

The corridors were dark and dead as we moved through them, silent as the grave. We reached an intersection and I noticed a red glow. It cast strange shadows across the corridor, twisted shapes of crimson and black.

"Emergency lights," said Blackhole, voice only just above a whisper. "Local battery power. Should have remembered them."

Small red lights lined the path to the stairwell and we followed them in tense silence. No one talked or made unnecessary sounds. There was only the tread of feet and the sounds of breathing. Kailen, I noticed, made neither noise. He was perfectly silent, a cat in the night.

We made it to the set of doors which guarded the stairs. Trinidad reached out and gave them a shove. They clunked, the noise oddly muffled in the dark, but didn't open. "Locked," he said. It was just as John had said: you needed power to open them. We should have done so before we turned it off.

"I have a spell," I said, and raised my wand. "The Unlocking Charm. It opens doors."

Blackhole turned to look at me. She had a long hard face and it was all the harder awash with red. "Very well."

Smiling at my small victory, I stole forward and rapped the door with my wand. Alohomora! The door clicked and I tugged it open with a silent Summoning Charm.

"After you."

Malon Reeves snorted and strode through. Blackhole's eyes narrowed a fraction but she didn't otherwise comment. Trinidad, the last person through, wedged it open with a small mechanical device. At least we had a fast route back now. Hopefully we wouldn't need it.

The stairwell was also illuminated by the emergency lights, glass fronted boxes set high on the wall. They gave just enough light to mark where one step ended and the next began. The further we went, the thicker the tension grew. Even Kailen seemed affected, more alert, more the stalking predator. His muscles moved under his clothes, tight knots of corded flesh. Only Trinidad seemed immune but perhaps that shouldn't have been a surprise. If Faye spoke true, he was immortal and had a half century of experience under his belt. That counted for a lot. Voldemort was proof.

We rounded the corner and— The red emergency lights flashed like signal flares and guttered out, just as quickly. That could only mean...

"Get back!" I screamed and threw myself back up the stairs. They were hard and steep and I misjudged a step in my adrenalin fuelled dash. My feet disappeared from under me, something twisted in my gut and I fell, the hard edge of a step slamming into my chest. It was painful. Very painful. But that was for later. I dragged myself forward on knees and arms.

From behind came a dull thump and a rush of air, which stirred my hair and rode up the back of my shirt. That didn't matter though; I'd made it.

The other field agents had made it too, crouched low on all sides. Malon snickered but Kailen lent me a hand. I grabbed it and he pulled me up with strength he didn't look to have. Nothing seemed broken but I'd have another set of bruises to add to my already extensive collection.

"What happened?" said Blackhole.

"The lights dimmed," I said. "AEON, I mean the infection, did that when it was about to attack. When it used its electrokinetics thing."

"Electrokinesis," she said, correcting me. "Did anyone see where it came from?"

That was a good question; there were no computers in the stairwells.

"There was a camera to the top right," said Trinidad, one of his guns drawn and facing down the stairs. "Just around the corner." His golden masked never strayed towards us when he talked.

"Can you get a shot?"

He froze for a moment, as if thinking, but then shook his head. "Not without seeing it first. I may be able to get a shot off in time but it could be close."

"Can't shoot through walls either," said Malon.

"I could try to bounce a spell around the corner," I said. The corridor took a hard right turn. If I aimed for the connecting wall and angled things just right... It might work. I wasn't particularly good at bouncing spells. Ron's did it on a semi-regular basis, mostly by accident, but mine tended to go-off when they hit something.

"Bounce?" said Blackhole, clearly unsure about the whole idea or more likely me.

"I aim for that wall there," I said, pointing down the stairs. "It bounces off and hits the camera. If someone can tell me where the camera is, I should be able to hit it." Okay, maybe 'should' was being a bit generous but it certainly wasn't impossible.

"Here," said Trinidad. From his belt he took a small mirror and a few narrow sections of pipe. After a few seconds, he had them all screwed together, forming a lengthy stick. He affixed the mirror to the end.

"That would help," I said and gave a self-deprecating smile.

It took almost a minute to get everything set up right. Trinidad pushed his small mirror into place and angled it so I could see. A camera hung there, a small red light burning just below the lens. I began working out the angles, which wasn't exactly my strong suit, but I muddled through. When done, I nodded to Blackhole and raised my wand. Time to think bouncy thoughts.

"Deprimo!" I said and flicked my wand in a tight cross. The curse shot forward, a sickly purple shape. It hit the wall and wonder of wonders bounced too, angling up towards the ceiling. There it hit, and a section of wall erupted out. Broken rock and blackened wire showered the stairwell. It wasn't a perfect strike but it was close enough. The camera hung, a shatter mess. The red light sparked one final time and died.

* * *

After that it was slow going. We took our time, checking every corner. There was one more camera, which I destroyed using the same technique as the first, but apart from that, we reached Archives unmolested.

Between us and the main library was a short entrance way, which contained some potted plants and the lifts. I unlocked the stairwell doors using the Unlocking Charm and we stole forwards. That left only my own spells to keep us from our prize. The library's doors were a solid slab of metal and they spat blinding white lightning, an unintentional side effect of interacting spells. Each blast was sudden and violent, not to mention bright.

"The room's covered by a Shielding Charm," I said and sketched the path with my wand. "You can just see the blue glow."

"Take it down," said Blackhole and I nodded. It was why I was here.

Taking a few steps forward, I flicked my wand, muttering Counter-Charms under my breath. The Shielding Charm boiled away under my gentle caress. After a few seconds, only bare wall was left and the lightning died away.

"Should I do the same for the door?"

She nodded. That was sensible. If we needed to leave in a hurry, a clear escape route was always a good idea.

Despite my optimism, the doors proved a tougher nut to crack than the Shielding Charm. The first two stages weren't too onerous. The Locking Charm came off without difficulty. Everyone knew the Counter-Charm for that one: the Unlocking Charm. The Unbreakable Charm likewise was easy enough to remove. I wasn't likely to forget that spell in a hurry, not after desperately trying to remember it while plummeting unsupported through the air. The metal slab, though... Transfiguration was hard, Untransfiguration was harder and I'd never been very good at either. Despite that, I gave it my all. Wand raised, I locked my eyes forward and muttered a spell under my breath.

The metal shimmered then grew dull, taking on a slightly woody texture. I tried again, stabbing my wand forward this time. That gave a better result. A small circle near the centre turned completely wooden. True, there was some bark and one or two leaves but no one was perfect. Now that I'd got things started, the remainder was less tricky. I swept great lazy arcs with my wand and equally great swathes of metal reverted to wood. The two doors even popped apart with an almost organic plop.

With the way clear, we headed forward. Blackhole took the lead, with Kailen and Trinidad just behind, one on either side. Malon completed the diamond and I came along just behind her.

Instead of going to the door, as I'd suspected, we went to a section of wall, a few meters to the left. There Blackhole raise one hand and pressed it against the plaster. She closed her eyes, long white fingers giving slightly, and a black hole spun into existence.

It wasn't like any magic I'd ever seen but it did stir memories. A hushed sound spread out from the hole, faint whisperings accompanied by the rustling of a tattered veil hanging from a stone arch. I shivered but pulled myself together. This wasn't the Veil. This wasn't the Department of Mysteries. Despite that... It was dark already, with only a pair of emergency lights marking the stairwell to give illumination, but the hole seemed darker still. Somehow I thought it would appear so even in absolute gloom.

Blackhole motioned forward and Kailen jumped through, Trinidad just behind him. We waited, and I picked up the others' tension. Malon seemed especially irritable, hands opening and closing. Given she could throw energy bolts, that could be a very bad sign. Blackhole was just rigid.

My ear piece buzzed and Trinidad said, "Clear."

"Potter, you're next," said Blackhole and pointed towards the portal.

Gulp. I took a step forward and the whispering grew. "Stop being stupid, Harry," I muttered to myself, too low for anyone else to hear. I jumped.

The universe ended. Infinities existed in moments and moments existed in infinities. Black spun away in all directions. It was cold, far, far too cold, and then there was light. I stumbled out the far side of the portal, fell and collapsed to the ground, my knees knocking against the hard floor.

"Never again," I said as I forced myself up. After the portal, the library seemed almost brightly lit. For a few moments I thought the beyond-darkness of the portal had supercharged my night vision but then I saw Trinidad and Kailen, both with lit torches in hand. That was a far more mundane explanation. They scanned the room, flickering beams passing over shattered bookcases and dead computers.

The whispering increased and I shuffled to one side, just in time. Malon dropped down behind me, landing without even a stumble, and Blackhole came a moment later. She stepped out of the portal like it wasn't some kind of ghastly black hell.

As soon as she was clear, Blackhole pointed at the computers. "Unplug everything. I want no surprises. Malon, disable AEON." That had been in the plan too: simple ways to disable the three supercomputers. Mostly it involved removing important sounding parts with names that made no sense to me. Graphical what-it units and quantum central doohickeys. While she did that, I started unplugging things, flicking my wand at each computer in turn and watching the wires shoot free. The Disarming Charm truly was a wonderful spell.

While I was doing that, Blackhole was examining a map. The plan called for us to drop down into a room directly below but that room was quite a bit smaller than Archives' main library. Going by the map I'd been given the day before, I also thought I knew which it was: the sole Black room in Research and Development. It seemed 'may not enter under any circumstances' had its limits.

It didn't take me long to disable the computers and Malon was even quicker. The large glass orb, which had once sat atop AEON, was now removed and lying off to one side. Blackhole called us over, and pointed to a section of floor. "We drop through here. I'm first, then Kailen, then you Malon. Trinidad, you're next. Potter, you're last. Remember, if I say run, head for the portal I'll make in the floor. You should be able to drop into the Vault. Assuming the base isn't destroyed, we'll get out eventually. Anything else?"

"I could cast a Disillusionment Charm," I said, twiddling my wand. While a layman might take the movement as completely random, a true maestro of magic would recognise otherwise. A good twiddle is essential for much high level magic. From the looks people gave me, they didn't see the skill behind my art.

"And what," said Blackhole, levelling her eyes at me, "is a 'Disillusionment Charm'?"

"Turns you invisible," I said. "More or less. Sort of makes you look like the background. I can cast it on other people too if you want."

Her gaze stayed just as level, dark eyes flat. From the looks of things, she didn't like my habit of pulling new abilities out of thin air. If so, she was in for disappointment. It was more-or-less why I'd been hired. "Show me."

The Disillusionment Charm wasn't one of my everyday spells but I knew it well enough. One tap on the head, one non-verbal spell and raw egg was dripping down my neck. My body shimmered out of view, becoming transparent, not perfectly so but I was no Dumbledore.

"Invisible," I said and waved an invisible hand, the motion weakening the effect slightly, appearing as a shimmer in the air.

"Kailen?"

"Hum," said Kailen and held up a hand. "My my, very interesting. It's not dweomercræft as I know it my dear Justine, but there's something there. A glamour of life if you will."

"You can do this to other people?" she said, giving nothing away. I couldn't tell if her question was a compliment, indictment or something else entirely.

I nodded, realised that was stupid given my current condition and said, "Yes. It will turn anyone or anything invisible but it works best if you're still. Move and you start to show up."

Blackhole frowned. "Not this time, Potter. I've seen entire operations ruined because two people with invisibility powers couldn't see each other. We're not trying anything so different in the field until we've practiced."

I waved my wand and shimmered back into view, phantasmal silver liquid pooling on the floor around me. The Disillusionment Charm felt almost as weird coming off as going on, and a shiver ran down my back.

"We deploy on the count of five," said Blackhole and flicked her hand. An inky portal appeared in the floor, a swirling mass, blacker than black. Half heard whispers brushed against my ears, retreating when I tried to focus on them, strengthening when my focus waned. My heart hammered in my chest and I smiled, lips pulling at my face. This was it.

"Jump!" she said and stepped forward. As quick as that, she was gone, the portal almost reaching up to welcome her in. Next came Kailen. He drew his blinding white sword and jumped. Malon was next. She just stepped into the portal, not even a backwards look. Trinidad dove in headfirst, both guns out, and then it was me.

"Once more into the breach." I held my breath and leaped.

* * *

The too-cold blackness vomited me forth and I fell, only my long practice at almost dying giving me the presence of mind to roll on impact. Even so, it hurt like a bitch.

The cries of battle echoed around the small room, explosions and screams and the thump of over-powered banishers. The room was chaos. Near the centre was a huge glass pillar, reaching almost to the ceiling, and in it floated a metal orb. Bolts of lightning crackled from it, earthing above and below on silvered spikes. Hulking banks of electronics clung to the lower sides. Behind that was a half tube, about two thirds of a man tall and three long. My heart beat in my chest. This was it: EPOCH and the fusion reactor respectively.

A solid wall of warped space guarded both devices, twisted light which hurt my eyes.

Malon threw an energy blast and it exploded against the wall, sound, heat and smoke billowing out. The blast looked a match for any Blasting Curse but it did not penetrate.

Kailen stabbed his sword in lengthwise, blade blazing too white to look at, and it sank home. He tore it up and out, ripping space-time and Trinidad ducked into the gap.

Both guns raised, he opened fire and bullets slammed into the computer. They sparked off EPOCH's outer casing but could not to penetrate to anything vital.

He seemed to have the right idea and I dashed forward to join him, my wand held ready. "Expulso!" The explosive banisher ripped out, a fiery wave of force and magic. It smashed into EPOCH, magic tearing at the glass tube, but again EPOCH endured. The tertiary electronic equipment was less lucky, however. Desktop PCs exploded in showers of sparks; banks of blinking boxes shattered as they fell; dozens of cables tore loose and one cable in particular groaned under the assault: the heavy line which led from reactor to supercomputer.

Space in front of EPOCH warped, and rushed out, a twisting mass. I raised my wand, the Shielding Charm on my lips, but Blackhole was faster. Her hands came together and darkness gathered in them, a strange orb rather than her normal inky portal. The force blast hit it dead centre and shot right back the way it came, smashing into EPOCH. Invisible forces warred and I took the chance to attack again. The cable connecting EPOCH and the reactor was the key. Break it and the computer would be without power and the fusion reactor would automatically shut down.

"Depulso!" I shouted and stabbed my wand at my target, all my will behind the spell. The banisher slammed into the cable and tried to rip it free. The heavy duty connectors that secured the ends screeched but didn't give, but I wasn't the only person trying my hand. Trinidad was still firing, tracing his shot along the cable, and Malon opened up too, a savage grin on her face. Explosions shook the small room and then Kailen was rushing forward, dodging friendly fire with supernatural ease. With a mighty swing, he slashed down with the sword and severed the cable. It sparked, looking ready to explode, and I flicked out my wand. "Accio Kailen!" He shot back towards me.

The insulation broken, the cable exploded and raw energy pounded everything in range. Bolts of electricity slammed down all around me but I couldn't use my magic to protect myself, not until Kailen was safe. He shot passed, a living missile, and I whipped my wand to a new purpose. "Protego!"

A wall of blue light sprang up and lightning crashed against it. I set my legs, arms and wand and took it head on. The constant assault turned my shield near-opaque but the edges remained clear. Through those gaps, I could see I wasn't the only one taking a beating. Lightning struck at the core of EPOCH too. A corona of phosphorescent fury surrounded the small metal orb.

Speakers hidden somewhere in the room burst to life and a voice cried out. "No!" it screamed. "I will not be denied again!"

The lightning exploded from EPOCH's core and into the top most spike. From there it jumped up, leaving a sparking trail of machinery as it passed from device to device until it reached the ceiling. There it hung still for a single moment, but only a moment. It seemed to gather itself and shot towards the room's main light fixture. Brilliant light blazed forth, out shining even Kailen's sword, and then the ball was gone. It moved onto the next light, then the next, then the next. In less than a second it was out the door.

"After it!" shouted Blackhole and I let my shield drop. We turned as a group and dashed in the direction the ball had gone only to find a barred door in the way. "Go!" Blackhole thrust forward with her hands and a portal opened, its edges ragged and wild. The whispers were louder, too, almost but not quite distinct voices. There was no time and I ignored them with an effort of will. We barrelled through, no careful order.

The corridor was lined with red emergency lights, probably leading to an exit, and they flared and exploded as the ball lightning shot through each in turn. I dashed after it but Kailen outpaced me with almost contemptuous ease. Trinidad was only a mite slower and I was only just keeping up with Malon. The only expression on her face was a scowl. I, by comparison, was wheezing, breath heavy.

We hurtled around the corner in a strung out line, and I caught sight of a small sign: corridor 15. This was where John Taylor's office was located and I could see it just ahead. That could be bad; who knew what highjackable equipment he had stashed away. Sure enough the lightning swung left, through John's door.

Kailen and Trinidad were the first through, both perfectly in step with each other. Malon when next and then it was my turn. The second I was through the doorway, I stepped to the side. Death Eaters liked traps and old instincts died hard.

The room's sole illumination was Kailen's sword but that was light enough. It burnt with a white fire and cast hard shadows. Slowly, a spell on my lips, I traced the room with my wand, searching for sign of the infection, ball lightning or possibly something else. Trinidad was doing the same with his silver pistols but Kailen just stood there, tall and rigid.

The workspace was just as I'd last seen it: work tables covered with half completed circuits and mechanical devices, huge free standing electronic devices and shelves piled high with spy gadgets. The robotic Life Model Decoy still lay dead on its slab, electronic guts now closed. What there wasn't, though, was any sign of our target.

Kailen was almost shaking where he stood, the sword wavering in his hands as if he was just noticing its sizable weight for the first time. That was strange. Kailen's default mode was relaxed and even in tense moments he wasn't like this. Something mystical, perhaps? Faye had said he could sense mystical energies.

I took a breath and tried to feel magic, as ridiculous as the idea was. Nothing came but that didn't mean anything. It was a new skill for me, one which only worked on this universe's alien magic. Maybe if...

In a blinding motion, Kailen turned and swung the sword, the blade angled to bisect Trinidad. Masked as he was, I can't speak for certain as to Trinidad's expression but it surely must have been shock. He jumped back just in time, and the sword cut open air.

Kailen's face was taut and his arms continued to shake. He took another staggered step forward and swung again. Like before Trinidad jumped clear.

"Kailen!" said Trinidad. "What are you doing?"

The expression on Kailen's face intensified, a war fought with muscles, and his mouth opened a tiny fraction. "In. My. Head," he said, fighting for every word. Then it was gone and he leapt forward, with far more of his normal grace. The sentence had clearly cost him something.

Kailen struck again, and he was faster, surer. Trinidad was only just able to twist out the way and even so, the blade scored a bloody line down his side.

"Stop!" I yelled and jabbed my wand forward. "Stupefy!" The crimson stunner slashed towards Kailen but he turned and knocked it aside. I attacked again, stunners and Disarming Charms both, but he blocked each in turn.

Malon opened fire just as my first barrage was winding down, energy crackling from her hands. She let loose a storm of attacks, sizeable blasts of energy interspersed with needle thin shards and what looked almost like glowing mist, but Kailen was a whirlwind. His sword slashed through the air, always exactly where it needed to be, and not one of Malon's attacks hit home. "Fucking faeries," she said.

With Kailen's attention focused on Malon's attack, I cast again, a non-verbal Stunning Spell aimed right at Kailen's back. At the last possible moment he twisted and caught it on the flat of his burning blade. I frowned. According to Faye, the sword gave Kailen some kind of battle precognition. That appeared to involve knowing when something was about to hit him in the back, which didn't seem fair. I was meant to be the child of prophecy. Why didn't I take more after my parent?

While Malon kept up her energy bombardment and stopped Kailen from advancing, I trailed my wand around the room. Kailen had said 'in my head'. He was being controlled somehow and there'd been no indication before this that the infection could jump into living people. Maybe the infection had taken control of a mind control ray? That kind of device seemed just up John's alley, comic book meets James Bond. No lights glittered on the shelves, however, and no machinery hummed either. If I could just think of someway...

My heart thumped in my chest; I knew the perfect spell!

"Homenum Revelio," I said under my breath, and tapped my glasses. They turned solid red. Shit. The spell was one of the few with a front loaded subordinate incantation and that made it harder to perform, modifying a spell which had yet to be cast. I tried again, being sure to make the wand movements perfect, and this time it worked.

Coloured shapes swam in my vision, projected from my glasses, and they overlaid all nearby people. Kailen glowed a bluish-purple, Malon a dark red, Trinidad a lighter shade of the same colour and, Blackhole, when I looked back, magenta. I turned slowly, looking for any splash of colour to indicate the infection. At first I saw nothing but... The LMD was glowing. It was hard to notice. The colour was impossibly deep, almost black, but it was just visible. The LMD was a robot and the infection could take over computers. That could only mean...

"Deprimo!" I shouted and slashed my wand in a tight Saint Andrew's cross. My spell was barely a flicker of light, but the LMD moved impossibly fast. It rolled, mechanical muscles moving just like flesh, and my Detonating Curse hit the table. Shrapnel flew in all directions. The LMD threw itself towards me.

"It's in the robot!" I yelled and I took aim for another shot.

In a blizzard of cracks Trinidad opened up with both pistols. The first two shot struck home, blasting tight holes in the LMD's chest, but the follow-ups struck an invisible barrier. The LMD raised a warding hand but Trinidad just kept advancing, pouring fire into the machine.

With the LMD's attention diverted, Kailen swayed and thumped to the ground. His sword fell from his limb fingers and the blinding white light died. Darkness fell, sudden and absolute. Something cracked in the dark and I swung my wand. "Lumos!" Light blasted out, cutting a swathe. Trinidad's head was twisted at an impossible angle and the LMD had him lifted into the air, a broken corpse. No one could survive such a thing; I'd known enough death to recognise it when I saw it. Despite that, Trinidad raised one of his guns and fired at point blank range. The shot exploded into the LMD's stomach and it went stumbling back. Trinidad dropped like a sack of flour.

Blackhole opened up the moment Trinidad landed, a solid looking pistol held in both hands. The first shot punched home, blasting a bore right into the LMD's skull, and it went back still further, legs unsteady. She fired again but the bullet stopped in mid-air, a glittering point of silver in my wand-light. The LMD flicked its hands and the bullet reversed course, back the way it came. It slammed into Blackhole's shoulder and she went down.

Blood pounded in my ears, but I forced myself to act. I opened fire on the LMD and Malon was right there with me, energy bolts flying from her hands. My knuckles were white and I slashed my wand through the air, motions violent. Her bolts detonated against the LMD's invisible shield in great explosions of force and energy. My curses fared less well; they slithered and deflected off his invisible shield, a denial of my power rather than a direct challenge of it. Time to change tactic.

"Accio sword!" I said and stabbed my wand towards Kailen's sword.

It shot towards me, visible only in stop motion from Malon's explosions, and I caught it in my off hand. Immediately it erupted into burning white light and I staggered slightly, arm straining. Kailen really was stronger than he looked to carry it one-handed so effortlessly. That was for later, though. Not waiting a moment more, I lobbed it into the air and jabbed out with my wand. "Depulso!"

Still blazing with light, the sword shot towards the LMD, an avenging spear born of solar radiance. It slammed through the invisible barrier, not even slowing, and p into the LMD's chest. The light burnt and the robot's false flesh began to flay away, revealing metal underneath. Malon's energy blasts began to strike home and they too ripped at the machine.

It screamed, the sound an unearthly mix of human and machine. Its eyes glowing red, it charged right for us, Kailen's impaling sword still burning with white fury. Malon dived to one side but the LMD caught her a spinning blow to the side of the head. She crashed to the ground and ended up half draped over one of the tables. I fared bettered but was still in no position to stop its charge out the door.

Kailen was down and unconscious, Blackhole was shot and Trinidad had a broken neck but was somehow still alive. That left only me and Malon, and she was only just staggering to her feet, a groggy look in her eyes. "You help the injured," I said. "I'll track it."

Malon looked like she might object but instead swallowed and nodded her head. I dashed out the door.

* * *

With my Person Revealing Spell still activated I could see the dull-black shape of the LMD highlighted in my glasses. Even if I hadn't, the blazing sword would have given it away, the light spilling out from around the corner. I sprinted after it, feet thundering against the ground.

I rounded the corner and searched. The light was gone but the dark shape looked to be behind a door, just ahead of me. Good, that suited me just fine.

"Confringo!" The door exploded off its hinges and I barrelled through. There was no LMD but there was another wall, the room a small office of some kind. I stabbed out again. "Expulso!" The wall blew apart in a cloud of rock and plaster.

The dust hung everywhere but I banished it with a wave of my wand. That revealed a hole, leading into another corridor, and the LMD was right there.

It shot a look over its shoulder but kept running, each step a staggered jerk that still added up to something very fast. Most of its flesh was gone, blown away by Malon's energy bolts, leaving only a metallic exoskeleton.

I whipped out my wand, tip slicing a tight circle, and stabbed through the middle. "Confringo!" The Blasting Curse exploded against the robot's back and I followed it, scrambling through the hole in the wall.

It turned on me, and its eyes were red pinpoints, glowing with malevolent fury. The red seemed to expand, growing until it filled the world, and...

Turn away... Turn back now... A picture formed behind the words, a pulsating brain, supported in a robotic body the colour of jaundiced skin.

I screamed and threw off its control. The thing was trying to get in my mind, just like it had Kailen's. It clearly didn't know who it was dealing with. It might have mind control, telekinesis and the trick with electricity and computers but I was Harry James Potter and that was worth far, far more.

Again I struck out, advancing all the time, and managed to land a Blasting Curse. Explosive force struck out in all directions and the LMD went staggering back. I flicked my wand, casting another spell, but this time it blocked. An invisible barrier sprung up and my spell washed off like water from an object bewitched imperturbable.

The LMD's left arm hung limp but the right still worked. That arm thrust out, half raw metal, half smouldering flesh, and a focused bolt of force thundered forth. I dived to the side and the blast missed but it whipped at me even in passing. A second came a moment later and I just had time to throw up a shield. His attack slammed into my defence and it was far more focused than before. AEON might have more power but the LMD was packing almost as much force into a much smaller package. Another bolt slammed out, before the second had even faded, and it shattered my already weakened shield. I went careening back, rolling, skidding and came to rest with the hard metal leg of a table digging into my back.

The LMD didn't give me a moment's rest and slashed with its working hand. The force blast was narrower this time, a knife edge, and I threw my tired body clear just as the table exploded, ripped in half. It attacked again and I dived forward, going under the blast. The floor was hard but at least it didn't explode like the wall behind me.

There was a whooshing sound, then pain exploded in my side. The LMD had dashed forward, moving almost faster than I could follow, and kicked me. I groaned, rolled and slashed with my wand, trying to conjure a concealing black mist. It didn't work — I was much too battered for that kind of complex spell work — but I got a blast of thick motor oil instead. It sprayed up with considerable force and covered the LMD's face.

It staggered back, free hand waving. Random pieces of electronics exploded on all sides. With its eyes covered it was blind!

I slashed out with a Banishing Charm, aiming for the sword still sunk in the LMD's chest. It didn't work. My spell deflected off an invisible forcefield, and that was all the LMD required to deduce my location. It struck back and a force blast took me full in the chest. It was wild and unfocused, and that saved my life. It sent me flying back but did not explode my chest like an over ripe melon.

A deep bruising pain burnt in my chest but I pushed myself up and smiled a savage grin. The LMD pawed at its face, trying to remove the sticky black gunk I'd hit it with. It would succeed any moment and then my only advantage would be gone. I needed to think of something now. The LMD's force blasts were too strong to fight head on and I couldn't let it get away.

With only moments to go, I thought of something.

"Diffindo!" I shouted and jabbed my wand at the ground. A circle appeared, sliced into stone and carpet. The spell rushed out in two great arcs and didn't stop until it had completely surrounded the LMD.

Space warped in the LMD's hand and it blasted its own head. The black gunk exploded in all directions and its red eyes blazed out, brighter even than the sword.

It was now or never.

"Protego Salvio hexia Impedimenta!" I screamed and slashed my wand through the air.

The spells leaped out and settled into the physical guide of the circle. The Joining Charm merged the other two spells and a glittering dome sparked into existence, blue-grey in colour, the child of two fathers. It completely contained the LMD.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It might well be done.

Inside the bubble, the LMD raised a hand. Forces concentrated within its palm, a heat haze rising, and it struck out. The attack brushed harmlessly off the shield. By combining the Shielding Charm with the Impediment Jinx, I'd created a shield extremely resistant to physical and force based attacks. Even as strong as the LMD was, it wouldn't break through.

The metal of the LMD's face moved. If there'd still been flesh, the expression might have been contemplative. As it was, it was alien, like watching a human heart beat without a human to support it. A hundred human hearts in a hundred crystal cabinets, all beating, all alive... I didn't like to think about that day.

The LMD raised a single finger, still covered in flesh, and jabbed at the shield. The force beam was pencil thin but it fared no better than the larger blast.

It turned to me and its eyes grew bright. The edges of my mind started to erode, like sand before the sea, and were replaced by a warm fuzziness.

Take down the shield... The brain was there, surrounded by a nimbus of red veins. They danced a hypnotic dance.

No...

Step out... I won't hurt you... The brain grew bigger, dominating space and time and universe and death.

No...

I latched on to that other voice, using it to haul myself back to the real world. It was a voice I knew well. It was the voice which let me resist the Imperious Curse, the voice which gave me some protection against veela and the voice which made my will iron when it really counted. It might not extend to other stupid actions, like running off to the Ministry of Magic to save my Godfather, but in situations like this, it was absolute.

I threw off the LMD's attempt at mind control and raised my wand. "Not going to work," I said and looked the LMD straight in the eyes to show I didn't fear its power. "I've been resisting mind control since I was fourteen."

The LMD cocked its head and opened its mouth. Only the ruined remains of a tongue lay there but it spoke all the same.

"Who are you?" it said, voice human but screeching with an electronic overlay.

"Who are you?" I said right back, wand pointing square at its chest.

"I," it said, "am Doctor Sun! Release me, boy, and know my pleasure. I can teach you secrets. I can give you power. Attempt to keep me imprisoned and know my wrath!"

"How about no," I said, as things finally slotted into place. Faye had told me about Doctor Sun. Doctor Sun, the Chinese doctor who separated his brain from his body and connected it to a computer. Doctor Sun, who possessed mind control and telekinetic powers. Doctor Sun, who died in the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building. Doctor Sun, who infiltrated Mordred inside the hard drive MI6 had recovered from that very location.

"Do not test me, boy," said Doctor Sun. "I have defeated foes to who you would be but an ant." He smashed his fist against the shield but that did even less than the force blasts.

"And I'm quite use to dealing with megalomaniacal villains, thank you very much," I said. "Now..." I touched the radio on my belt and pushed a button. Something buzzed and I said, "I've got the infection trapped. It's Doctor Sun. Ask Faye if you don't know who that is."

I took my finger off the send button — something I dimly remembered from TV told me you needed to do this — and it crackled. "Who's speaking, over?" It sounded like Alistaire Stuart, the boss man himself. Gulp.

"Agent Potter," I said. "Everyone is, um, various degrees of disabled."

"I have Agent Reeves' report," said Alistaire. "You have the infection — Doctor Sun you report — contained? Over."

"Yes, sir," I said. "He's trapped in a shield. It should hold but I don't know for how long."

"I'm authorising reinforcements," he said. "Hold while you can. Over."

With that there was silence from the radio; the same could not be said of Doctor Sun.

"What do you want, boy?" he said. "Money, power, women?" He paused. "Immortality?"

"Nothing you can give me," I said and it was true. Unless he knew the secrets of dimensional travel, he had nothing I wanted.

He raised his one free hand, eyes glowing a shade darker, and gripped the hilt of the sword where it speared his chest. My eyes opened wide. Oh, shit. I'd seen that sword cut through shields I couldn't even hope to breach. My defences wouldn't stand a chance.

It came out in a shower of sparks and thick black liquid, robotic blood and bile. Within Doctor Sun's hand it glowed like a second sun, a weapon fit to shatter any barrier, and that's exactly what it did. He brought it down in a scything arc and it parted my shield like a hot knife through butter. With only seconds before he would be on me again, I did the only thing I could: attack.

My most successful attack so far had been my conjured oil so that's where I started. I whipped my wand through the air, left to right, and conjured a large square sheet maybe two meters on a side. It popped into existence and I stabbed out again, the Banishing Charm on my lips. "Depulso!"

The sheet hurtled forward and I kept my wand trained, making sure it stayed wide and spread. Doctor Sun slashed once more, even as the remnants of my shield fell around him, and bisected the sheet down the middle. I'd been expecting something like that. I twisted my wand, warping the spell in my mind, and the two halves curved inwards, each part shifting to wrap around him. They constricted, binding arms to side and rendering the sword useless.

It wasn't over yet, though. Force gathered in Doctor Sun's working hand, and I stabbed out again, two spells in quick succession. First came the Sticking Charm, binding the sheet in place, and then the Unbreakable Charm, turning mere cloth into something harder than the strongest steel. Doctor Sun's attack exploded out, slamming into his bindings, and if not for my spells they'd have surely shattered.

"Depulso!" I said again and stabbed forward with my wand. The banisher slammed into Doctor Sun and he toppled backwards, crashing into the ground with a metallic clatter. His eyes glowed red and I pushed the attempted mind control aside before it could properly begin.

"No you don't," I said as I strode towards his prone body. I slashed my wand through the air and sent Kailen's sword spinning off into the corner. Now that it was no longer attached to anyone, its light flickered out. To replace it, I conjured a ball of illumination and hung it above our heads.

Doctor Sun struggled on the ground and managed to raise one foot. Force blasted from the sole and I threw myself to one side. When I rose, it was with my wand pointed right at the prone Doctor Sun and my first spell halfway cast. "Stupefy!" A crackling red bolt of energy crashed into his side. I stalked closer, casting with each step. "Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!"

The stunners battered into Doctor Sun and, bound as he was, his invisible shield seemed a lot less effective. Scarlet lightning crackled over his robotic body and the light in his eyes dimmed. I cast my last spell with the tip of my wand pressed hard against his forehead. "Stupefy!"

With one final shudder, Doctor Sun collapsed.

I spent the next few seconds shoring up his restraints, binding him in so many layers of Sticking Charmed, Unbreakable cloth he looked like an Egyptian mummy. For good measure I worked in a few Impediment Jinxes too, and when I was done, heat rolled off the cloth in a visible shimmer. Enchanting was meant to be approached with the same methodical mind-set as magical defences: intent neutral and with reference to large foldout charts of spell interactions. Since I'd done neither of those things, a little spontaneous Heating Charm was not unexpected. The spells would be weaker for it in the long run but I could hopefully get Doctor Sun somewhere safe by then.

While I waited for the backup Alistaire had promised some minutes ago, I kept a careful eye on Doctor Sun. He'd played dead before, when mind controlling Kailen, and I didn't want any funny business. That was probably why I didn't notice Blackhole until she was almost on top of me.

"Potter," she said and grunted in pain. I, for my part, jumped and turned. Her left arm was in a sling and she was leaning heavily on one of the RAF soldiers. That probably wasn't surprising; Doctor Sun _had_ shot her.

"Blackhole," I said with just the beginnings of a cheeky grin. "Doctor Sun has been subdued for now." I pointed at his mummified form. "We should get him somewhere safe, though. I've knocked him unconscious but he's hopped brooms before, when we took down EPOCH. Wouldn't want that to happen again."

"Why is it wrapped in bed sheets?" she asked and hissed again, shooting a glare at the soldier supporting her. "In fact where did you even get a bed sheet up here?"

"Magic," I said. "Lots and lots of magic. They're bewitched to be Unbreakable and I've woven some other defences in too. It should hold him physically but as I said... I'm not making any promises if he tries his ball lightning trick."

Blackhole grunted. "We'll move him to one of the secure testing rooms. Electromagnetically and mystically sealed and lined with insulating material. It's the best we can do for now. Arfman, Dimond. Pick up the package and follow."

The soldiers moved forward; they might have been among the men who grabbed me but it was impossible to tell. Those men had worn black balaclavas; these were barefaced, weather worn and hard.

"It might be a bit hot," I warned them. While they were doing that, I turned back to Blackhole. "Is everyone okay?"

"No one's dead," said Blackhole and her lips thinned. "Kailen's still unconscious. The mind control hit him hard. Trinidad will be back to normal in a few days. He's immortal and just about indestructible." I tried very hard to pretend I didn't already know that. "Reeves was only stunned and I'm..." She looked down at her arm. "I've suffered worse."

"Ready," said either Arfman or Dimond; I'd yet to find out which was which. Whatever the case, they had Doctor Sun hoisted into the air.

"6E," said Blackhole. "You know the way."

They clearly did and set off down the corridors; I helped by moving my conjured light, keeping it always overhead.

* * *

Room 6E was small, square and maybe five meters to a side. The only furniture was a plastic table and rugged rubber lined the walls. The door looked thick but it was no cell. While a pair of soldiers got rid of the table — with much 'turn it this way' and 'no that way' — I turned to Blackhole. "Does this even lock?"

"Not well enough," she said. "But it's the best we've got. Prisoner Containment is still under lockdown. Once that's lifted, we can put him somewhere more secure."

"Do you want me to keep him stunned?"

"Like this?"

I nodded. "Stunning Spell. Mostly harmless but too many can cause problems."

"Yes," she said after a moment's hesitation. "How long does it last?"

A few hours for a single stunner was the textbook answer, more if multiple where used, and less the bigger you were. Of course, good old Miranda Goshawk had never even heard of a LMD when she wrote the textbook, and the less said about body hopping computer entities the better. "I have no idea," I said. "I've never used it on, well, whatever Doctor Sun is before. Every half hour seems safe, more if needed."

"We'll try that," she said and motioned forward with her hand. "Move him in."

Arfman and Dimond carried Doctor Sun into the now cleared room and placed him down. Never taking their eyes off him, they backed out and shut the door. There was a thick window, made from multiple layers of laminated glass, and I could just see the good Doctor's mummified form, admittedly very warped. Someone produced a set of keys and locked the door. It really was a depressingly small lock.

We waited and the minutes ticked by in tense silence. Finally, though, Blackhole shook her head. "Pentland," she said. "Help me back to Operations. Potter, the rest of you, stay here. You're on guard duty."

She limped away, supported by her soldier, and I turned to the maybe half-dozen men who remained. "Mind if I add a few protective spells?"

They looked at each other and a shorter man, with two chevrons on his shoulder, answered. "If you think that's called for Agent Potter."

'Agent Potter', that brought a slight smile to my face. It hadn't been that long ago that these very same men had pointed guns at me. Merlin, it wasn't that long since they'd actually opened fire. But that was the past and the present was infinitely deadlier. Philosophising aside, since I thought it was very much called for, I spent a few minutes casting my best Locking Charm on the door.

Once that was done, I let out a breath and shook my head. It had been a long day and the near constant batterings did nothing to improve it. "One of you tell me when it's stunning time? He's been out for about fifteen minutes. Call it another fifteen?" They nodded and I gave a sigh of relief. "Good. Now..." I concentrated and flicked my wand at the far wall, left to right.

Pop!

An overstuffed armchair sprung into existence. I'd been aiming for a red and gold recliner, like those in the Gryffindor common room, but got a bright maroon armchair in a different style instead. It didn't matter. With a tired sigh, I plopped down, set my wand on my lap and leaned back. Dumbledore would've been proud... Even if he would critique the finer details of my conjuring.

The remainder of my fifteen minutes' rest passed quickly and I even managed to keep my eyes open.

"Time, Agent Potter," said one of the soldiers and I levered myself up, groaning as I did. For a soft chair, it sure did make me stiff.

A muttered Counter-Charm took down the magical defences on the door and I motioned forward. "Open it up." I could've done that with magic but wanted to be ready.

While five of the soldiers took up firing positions, the last moved forward with a key. I raised my wand, muscles tensing. If Doctor Sun was going to make a move, now would be an excellent time. The door clicked and swung open. A wave of heat rolled out, hot even in the already muggy corridor, but there was no blast of force or blur of movement. Okay so far.

"Don't look at his eyes," I said and crept through the door; they shut it behind me. The tough rubber squeaked under my shoes and it was even hotter the closer I got. The pseudo Heating Charm born from the chaotic interactions of my other spells was really going at it.

Very little of the LMD was still visible, cocooned in reams of bewitched bed sheets. Since they would weaken my spell, if only slightly, I aimed for one of the rare clear areas and cast a Stunning Spell. It bucked my arm and scarlet lightning crackled over Doctor Sun's body. I followed it up with another two of the same, driving both home with equal power. That done, I backed away, wand never leaving the good doctor's slumbering form. The soldiers swung the door open for me and I exited the room. "Lock it up."

* * *

It was a long few hours. Six more times I entered the room to stun Doctor Sun and each time I drove three Stunning Spells into his seemingly unconscious form. If he'd been human, that would be well inside 'see a Healer' territory, but he wasn't and I had no way to judge. By the end I was beginning to worry about the air; with the power still off, it must be getting stale even with only a few of us breathing it. Maybe it was time to offer Bubblehead Charms all round? At any rate, the hot muggy feeling was on the increase.

A little before the eighth round of stunning, a clatter came from along the corridor. Some of the soldiers turned, guns swinging, and I rose too. Damn my back was stiff.

A gaggle of people came into view, pushing a loaded trolley. Most were white coated science types and they were led by John Taylor, looking even more tired than before. The stubble was thick on his chin.

"Mr Potter," he said and ran a hand down his face. "Harry. Is our prisoner still secure?"

"Yes, Mr Taylor," I said and shot a glance through the thick glass window to make sure. Doctor Sun looked the same as ever.

"Good. My team and I have examined my notes from the S.H.E.I.L.D. Life Model Decoy. Thank God for off-site backups. And we think we can remove the memory core. Doing this will render Doctor Sun inert, just as he was in the hard drive." He was speaking to me but his eyes kept drifting to the overstuffed armchair. Whatever he thought of it, he forwent comment.

"One final round of stunning?" I said, and John nodded.

"If you please."

"Right," I said and turned to the soldiers. "One more time, then we're done." A flick of my wand vanished my chair and another dissolved the Locking Charm. I positioned myself in front of the door. "Open it up."

Five guns and one wand gave quite a lot of firepower and it was all ready if Doctor Sun tried anything. Even so, the air was heavy with tension. This would be his last chance to escape. One of the soldiers pulled the door open and I immediately dashed inside. It slammed shut behind me, a dull thud.

Now that the door was sealed, I moved forward more carefully. Doctor Sun lay there, the same as ever but... It was a lot less hot than before.

I threw myself to the left just as a wave of force erupted from Doctor Sun, shooting out in every direction. My conjured sheets all but vaporised, and I slammed into a wall, hard but rubbery. "Ah!" I cried out but scrambled to my feet. Doctor Sun was standing but wasn't entirely free. Half the sheets were gone but some were still fastened, binding both arms and hobbling his legs. His head was free though.

Crackling blue-white lightning erupted from behind his eyes and his body fell, a puppet with its strings cut. The energy shot out, a raging mass of ball lightning, and slammed against the wall. For a half second it held, trying to break through, then snapped back. The only thing to mark Doctor Sun's attempt was a charred mass of burnt rubber.

Lightning crashed anew over the LMD, as Doctor Sun tried to return home. The robot arched its back, trying to move, and I added my own energy to the mix.

"Stupefy!" I screamed and launched the burning crimson spell. "Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!"

For a few blinding seconds blue-white and crimson lightnings warred, then they both died away. The LMD slumped to the floor, black smoke drifting up from the sword hole in its chest and the smaller bullet wounds elsewhere. Its eyes were lifeless. If Doctor Sun had truly managed to return home, he wouldn't be leaving again in a hurry. That was for the best; it hadn't been fun at all and my entire side was on fire.

"Petrificus Totalus," I said and flicked my wand, the movement pulling some quite sore muscles. The LMD clicked, the Body-Bind Curse pulling its limbs together and locking them fast. With that in place, I removed the remaining bewitched cloth, vanishing it back into non-being. "It should be fine now."

Air whooshed as the soldiers yanked the door open and the scientists moved in, pushing their cart. Within seconds, they had the LMD locked to the floor using a more than slightly intimidating collection of bars, straps and shaped plastic things. That didn't mean I took my wand off him, of course.

Once fully bound, John knelt next to the LMD and spread out a tool kit beside him. He selected a small screwdriver, pushed it into the LMD's right ear and twisted it a few times. Once done, he did the other side too.

"Halfway there," he said, a little too loud to count as under his breath. After setting the screwdriver to one side, he reversed his hand and slid two fingers into the LMD's nostrils. A moment's fiddling and the metallic face came away, revealing a mass of complex electronics. And a lot of black smoke too; my bad.

John tutted under his breath but didn't comment. Instead he retrieved his screwdriver and removed a small black box, three inches on a side. One of the other scientists produced a slightly larger case, lined with rubber, and John slotted the box into place.

"Done," he said and stood. "We need to get this to secure containment. Mr Potter, I think Mr Stuart wants to speak with you as soon as you are free."

More things to do? I really wanted to get to bed. A nice warm set of covers would do more for my body right then than the best Healing Spell. Some of it must have shown on my face because John put his hand on my shoulder and gave a wry smile.

"Don't worry. I'm sure you'll get a rest soon, but we're all working long hours until this mess is cleared up. Not bad for a first full day, right?"

Considering my life, he wasn't entirely wrong.

* * *

The power was still off as I walked back but that wasn't too much of a problem. I had magic to light my way and the upper levels were lit by battery powered spot lamps. All the doors along the path were open too, some explosively. Life was getting back to normal even without lights or computers.

The corridors weren't bursting with people when I reached Planning and Operations but there were a few. I cornered the first person I saw and got directions to Alistaire Stuart; he was still in Briefing Room A.

Six large banks of lights cast long shadows in that cavernous auditorium, and they were connected to an electrical generator near the back of the room. It rumbled gently, a welcome background noise after the deathly quiet of the blackout. Alistaire was holding court at the centre of the room, reading papers, talking to people and doing all the things which kept Mordred running, electricity or no.

I approached and made myself noticed.

"Walk with me, Potter," he said and handed off a clipboard. We walked to one side, where the shadows of the chamber's interior met the light. "What do you see?" He motioned at the busy activity continuing in the briefing room.

Alistaire Stuart was the master of Mordred, a special operations division of MI6. That's what I saw. His private domain. "Mordred, sir," I said.

Alistaire frowned. "Do you know what I see?" he said.

"No sir."

"I see Britain. I see sixty million lives waiting to be snuffed out. I see some of the few people who might stop it. We are the line separating success from disaster, Potter. Superheroes — Wisdom, MI13 and his Excalibur — they can't and won't do what is necessary. This world's supervillains will end it if they have the chance and there are other threats too, from the depths of the past, the future and other worlds."

He turned and looked at me, eyes hard chips of ice.

"You did good work today, Agent Potter. I'll wait for your report to write up my formal evaluation but based on what your fellow agents have said you fought well and skilfully. Agent Blackhole was quite complimentary."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're in for a bright future here, Agent Potter. Good job."

I nodded my thanks and turned to leave. My first day at the office had been depressingly similar to my old life — life and death struggles, insane villains, the works. None of that really mattered, though. All I truly wanted was a night's sleep. Of course, with the power still out that was easier said than done.

"One last thing," said Alistaire and I turned. He wore a slight smile. "Buy a proper suit. I don't know where you got that thing you are wearing, but it's not suitable office attire. Read the dress code."

_The end_


End file.
